New Starts
by Evapopefan56
Summary: Rachel is not only a headteacher but also a step-mum to 3 girls.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was a Friday night, but no one was in a very nice mood. Rachel and her husband Joe were sat downstairs watching TV. A few months ago Joe's ex-wife had passed away from cancer and this meant that his daughters were staying with him. The youngest daughter Chloe, who was 5 seemed to be okay, but was very quiet around Rachel and still felt a little bit uncertain around her, the middle daughter-Olivia who was 11 also seemed to have taken to her reasonably well, however the real problem was with Joe's 15 year old daughter Jessica, who just seemed to love causing trouble wherever she could. She used to be so shy and quiet but since her Mum had died she'd just seemed to want to rebel and wanted to upset Rachel whenever she could.

They were about to put coronation street on, but suddenly the phone started ringing so Joe went to answer it.

As soon as he started talking, Rachel could tell that it was work on the phone and presumed they wanted him to come in, Joe was a firefighter and would often get called away at short notice, which would be a bit of a pain for Rachel, when she wanted a nice night in with him after the end of a busy week at work, but she knew it couldn't really be helped.

"Rach I've got to go in, they said they wouldn't need me tonight but…"

"I know, I'm guessing it's another emergency then"

"Yep they said they need me there urgently"

"It's fine, just go"

"Will you mind looking after the girls"

"Nope but I think they will" Rachel sighed "or rather jess will"

"Look don't let her get to you Rachel, she's just being awkward because she's getting used to you, give her a month and she'll be fine"

"You've been saying that for the past 4 months" Rachel said but she gave him a small smile

Joe kissed her on the lips, before getting his stuff together and going out the front door leaving Rachel alone with the girls.

She sighed, although she really wanted to try and have some sort of relationship with the girls, it didn't look like she was going to get a chance to anytime soon.

She glanced at the clock and realised she needed to get Chloe off to bed, Joe would normally make her go up at 7 but Rachel always let her stay up a bit later whenever she was in charge.

She went up to the toy room and found Chloe in there.

She jumped when she saw Rachel come in and looked a bit scared.

Rachel wished Chloe would feel a bit more comfortable with her, she knew that she was only frightened of her because of the way Jess was

"Hey love, we need to get you off to bed I'm afraid it's getting late" Rachel said

"Okay" Chloe said standing up and going to her bedroom

Rachel got her some pyjamas out and helped her get changed into them

"There we go, you're looking all cosy"

"Rachel can I stay up a bit longer?" Chloe asked sounding scared

"It's late enough as it is love" Rachel said gently "I don't think your Daddy would be too happy if I let you stay up late would he huh?

Chloe just shook her head in response

"are you going to go to the bathroom before bed?"

"Yeah"

"Okay well off you go then, and I'll tuck you in when you get back"

Once Chloe had been to the bathroom, Rachel got her tucked into bed

"Do you want me to a leave a light on for 10 minutes, and then I'll come and switch it off"

"Yes please"

Rachel left her room before going downstairs

She was shocked when she saw Jess coming down the stairs behind her, with her hair and makeup all done and a very revealing dress on, Rachel knew she was at a party tonight but hadn't expected her to come down looking like that

"And where do you think you're going dressed like that?" Rachel asked frostily

"To my party"

"Erm no I don't think so young lady"

"Well much as I appreciate you giving your opinion, unfortunately I won't be taking it"

"Don't you dare speak to me like that"

"I'll speak to you however I want, you're not my mum"

"You're still in my house and you'll still show basic levels of respect if you want to carry on living here"

"What you threatening to kick me out?"

Rachel rolled her eyes and sighed

"Go and change right now" she said firmly

"No way"

"Fine then you're not going out"

"yes I am and you can't stop me, and if you try to stop me I'll just climb out my window to get out and if I break my neck it'll all be your fault"

Rachel really didn't know what to say to this, she couldn't believe how rude Jess would be to her at times, but as Jess had said it wasn't like Rachel was her mum so she didn't really know how to stop her going out

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing anyway?"

"Oh Jess where do I even start, the skirts so short I can practically see your knickers, if it were a couple centimetres shorter they'd be on full display, it's incredibly tight, and let's just say it hardly sends out the right impression to boys does it?"

"I don't care"

"Well I do"

Jess had had enough by this point and shoved passed Rachel

Rachel sighed but knew that there was nothing she could do, this wasn't the first time something like this had happened with Jess and she was sure it wouldn't be the last.

Of course Rachel felt extremely worried about her being out looking like she did and just hoped she'd be sensible and stay safe

Once Rachel had calmed down a bit, she went upstairs to turn Chloe's light off, she found her sat up in bed biting her nails and knew she only did this when she was worried about something, so decided to go in and see if she could help at all

"Chloe love is everything okay?"

"Yeah" Chloe replied

"Are you sure, you look a bit upset that's all"

"What time is Daddy getting back?"

"I'm not sure Chloe, you'll be fast asleep by the time he does though"

"oh"

"Are you sure there's nothing the matter sweetie?" she asked sounding concerned

"Yeah I'm sure"

"Okay well I think it's sleeptime now yeah, or you're going to be ever so tired in the morning"

"Okay"

Rachel made sure she was comfortable before leaving

She was really worried about Jess by the point, she half thought about going in the car to see if she could spot her but knew that she couldn't really leave the other two girls and she probably wouldn't see her anyway.

Rachel made herself a cup of coffee before going and sitting in the living room.

Before long Olivia came down and sat next to her, Rachel smiled at her out of the three girls Olivia was the one that seemed to be the most relaxed around her and the two of them got on quite well and were becoming closer.

"Hey liv" Rachel said smiling

"Rachel if I told you something would you tell my Dad?"

"Well that all depends on what it is, why is there something you want to tell me?"

"Yes"

"Go on then"

"I don't want you to tell Dad though"

"Well I can't promise that I'm afraid liv, I'm not going to keep big secrets from your Dad and you know that"

"Oh" Olivia said

"but you can try me can't you, and I do promise that I'll only tell your Dad if I really have to"

"It's just I got into trouble today at school and I've got to get a signature off someone"

"Ah" Rachel said raising her eyebrows "What was it you got into trouble for?"

"Just not paying attention and being cheeky"

"That doesn't sound like you liv, I've been led to believe you're very well behaved at school, but maybe I'm mistaken"

"No I am normally, I just wasn't today"

"Oh and whys that?"

Olivia just shrugged her shoulders in response

"I can't help unless you talk to me"

"I just had things on my mind, you know like sometimes I start thinking about Mum and I just get upset and I start acting up a bit"

Rachel sighed, realising she couldn't really get annoyed over this and she really did feel sorry for her at times as she knew how tough it must be for her.

"Sweetheart it's bound to be hard for you at times, living without your Mum and it's perfectly understandable that you'll get upset sometimes"

Suddenly tears started forming in Olivia's eyes and soon she started sobbing

"Oh dear" Rachel said gently "I'll go and get a tissue"

Rachel nipped across to the bathroom and grabbed some tissue before sitting down and putting her arm round Olivia

"Hey don't cry its okay sweetheart" Rachel said gently

"I'm sorry"

"Don't be daft, you don't need to be sorry, sometimes you need a good old cry don't you huh?"

"I don't know why I'm crying, it's just really hard when I hear everyone else talking about their Mums all the time but obviously I can't because I don't have a mum anymore"

"Oh love, I know how hard it is, really I do my Mum died when I was just a little bit older than you are so I do understand just how tough everything seems especially at first"

"I didn't know your Mum died"

"Well It was a very long time ago and to be honest my Mum and I were never particularly close anyway she wasn't the best Mum in the world"

"Why?"

"Well let's just say she loved going out and getting drunk a lot more than she loved us"

"Oh that must have been awful"

"Well like I said it was a long time ago and I didn't turn out too bad in the end" Rachel said smiling slightly "But all I'm saying is I do understand how hard it is to grow up without your Mum, I know you've got your Dad who cares about you so so much but there are some things that you just need your Mum to talk to about"

"I know I love Dad but I can't talk to him about some things, it's just too hard"

"I know that love, listen I've made it clear from that start that I'll never try and replace your Mum or try to be like her in any way but if ever you need somebody to talk to, I'm here for you"

"Thanks Rachel" she said wrapping her arms round her

"That's okay, now are you going to fetch that letter for me to sign then?"

Olivia went to her bag and handed it to Rachel, Rachel skimmed through it quickly before signing it

"Your signature would be even harder for me to try and copy than Dads" Olivia said causing Rachel to laugh

"Don't you even think about it young lady"

"Are you going to tell Dad"

"Don't you think he'd want to know you've been feeling a bit unhappy?" Rachel asked

"No please don't tell him Rachel"

"Okay then I won't, but just this once, you know how much I hate keeping things from your Dad, so make sure it doesn't happen again"

"It won't I promise"

"Good girl"

"I think I might go to bed now"

"Are you sure? Its only just turned 9 and it is a Friday"

"I'm really tired though"

"Okay well I'm going to get into my pyjamas so I'll come up with you"

The two of them went upstairs and Rachel was about to go into her bedroom when she heard sobs coming from Chloe's bedroom so went in.

When she went in she found Chloe sat up in bed crying

"Chloe it's okay it's just me" she said gently "Is it okay if I flick this light on?"

Chloe nodded so Rachel flicked the light on and got into bed next to her

"I'm sorry"

"sorry for what love?"

"For crying and being awake"

"oh sweetie nobody's angry I promise, it's okay you're nice and safe, you don't need to be frightened"

"Am I not in trouble?"

"Of course you're not in trouble" Rachel said "you've got to tell me what's upset you so much though"

"I had a really horrible dream"

"oh dear that's no good, what was the dream about?"

"I don't want to say"

"well that's okay, you don't have to tell me" Rachel said putting an arm around the little girl "do they happen often these dreams huh?"

"Yes, almost every night"

"And does Daddy know about them?"

Chloe shook her head as more tears slid down her face

"oh darling don't tell me you just sit up here crying on your own"

"I'm always okay after a while"

"Why didn't you say something to me or your Dad huh, neither of us want you to be upset all by yourself"

"Because I'd have woken you if I got Daddy, and I thought you'd be really mad"

"Well I know your sister would have you believe I'm some sort of monster, but I'm not love and the last thing I want is you getting upset and not being able to talk to one of us"

"I just get really scared"

Rachel could see how shaken up Chloe was and decided to take her downstairs with her

"Love why don't we pop downstairs and I'll make you a nice drink of hot chocolate, I know you like that"

"Yeah"

"Come on then you"

Rachel led her downstairs and sat her on the sofa while she made a hot chocolate

Once it was ready Rachel sat down next to her and gave her a cuddle

"There are you starting to feel a bit calmer now hmm?"

"Yeah"

"good girl, are you sure you don't want to tell me what that dream was all about?"

Chloe nodded her head but then shook it

"They're about mummy"

"ah okay, do you want to tell me about them then?"

"I just dream that she's still alive sometimes and then I dream about the last time I saw her and it makes me feel really sad when I wake up"

"Oh love and have these been going on since you moved here?"

"Yes"

"Do you know what I think? I think that you're feeling really unsettled and a bit scared and that is absolutely fine, everything seems really strange and scary but I promise me and daddy just want to help, we both know how hard everything is at the moment and we need you to start feeling a bit more relaxed"

"When will the dreams stop"

"I don't know love, but I promise before long things will start to seem more normal again and you'll get used to things here, but you're never going to stop missing your mummy either"

Rachel stayed downstairs with her for ages but after a while Chloe was getting tired so Rachel took her upstairs to bed

She stayed with her till she fell asleep and then tiptoed out

It was getting late by now an Rachel hoped Jess would be home soon

She waited up till about 12 and was getting really worried by now as jess wouldn't normally stay out this late-she was only 15 after all.

Eventually she heard the door open and relief flooded through her but it didn't take her long to realise Jess was very drunk

Rachel didn't know what to do, although Jess went to a few parties, Jess had never come back drunk before, but she knew getting mad would be the worst thing she could do right now, she needed to stay calm

"Jess lets get you upstairs"

"No I don't want to go"

"I know but bed is exactly the place you need to be trust me"

"No you're not my mum you can't tell me what to do" Jess slurred

"I know but I'm the only one around right now aren't I, so we're going to have to cope"

Jess could barely walk and she was extremely shocked that Rachel was being kind to her

"I think I'm a bit drunk" Jess said laughing hysterically and falling round everywhere

"You think? I think the fact you can barely walk suggests you've had far too much to drink young lady. Your Dad is going to go mad"

"no don't tell him"

"I've got to I'm afraid my love"

Suddenly jess burst into tears but then clutched her stomach and threw up everywhere

"I didn't mean to do that"

"I know, I'm the poor sod who'll have to clean it up, but let's get you to bed first yeah?"

"I can't go upstairs I can't walk" Jess said before bursting out laughing

"Well I've had enough practice on nights out getting drunken people to get up to bed so I dare say we'll manage, come on put your arm round me"

Rachel eventually managed to get her upstairs and into bed

"I'm sorry" Jess slurred

"It's okay, though you really will be sorry in the morning when you've got a sore head and your dad to answer to"

"No don't tell him"

Rachel sighed but knew that now wasn't the time for a sensible discussion

"We'll talk in the morning jess"

"Please don't"

"Jess I said we'll talk in the morning, when you've had chance to sober up, just sleep it off yeah"

"Okay" Jess said through tears

Rachel made sure she was tucked in okay before flicking the light off

"Rachel"

"Yes?"

"Thankyou" Jess whispered through tears

Hope you enjoyed it, please review! xxxx


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Sorry I've taken so long to update I've been really busy.

It was a Friday afternoon and Rachel had just finished work and she and Chloe were on their way to pick the younger two up from their primary school. Although Rachel and Jess still argued quite a bit their relationship had definitely been improving since the night that Jess came home drunk. Joe was going away for the weekend with some friends and Rachel had offered to look after the girls for him.

"Rachel is it okay if I go out tonight?" Jess asked

Rachel sighed, she didn't really want jess going out after last week as the last thing she wanted was for her to come home drunk again

"I don't know Jess, I don't know if that's such a good idea"

"You can't stop me going that's so unfair"

"Well I'd far rather you discussed it with your father first, I'm sure he wouldn't be very happy if he thought you were going out without him knowing about it"

"I already asked him last night he said to tell you it was fine" Jess said

"are you sure?" Rachel said doubtfully "I really hope you're not lying to me Jess"

"I'm not I promise"

"Well I shall be checking with your Dad to make sure, but if he has said yes then I can't stop you can I huh?" Rachel said

"Thanks Rachel"

"Well like I said I'll be checking with your Dad before you go out" she said "Jess is there going to be drink at this party? And I'd really appreciate an honest answer"

Jess sighed but she knew there was no point in lying to Rachel as she'd only get found out

"Yes" she said sounding small

"and are you going to be drinking?"

"Probably"

Rachel rolled her eyes, Jess was only 15 after all and really thought she might have been put off for a bit after last week, but she knew that if she went on about it more the more determined Jess would be to drink and it would make it all seem even more exciting to her.

"What do you plan on drinking?"

"What is this 20 questions?" Jess asked

"Hey mind your tone young lady, Im responsible for you this weekend and you're 15 years old so I'm well within my right to tell you you're not going afterall"

"and are you going to"

"not if you're honest with me I'm not no"

"I don't know what I'm drinking yet I'll just have to see what's there"

Rachel sighed, but she'd rather she knew about the drinking so she could give Jess some advice and try and make sure she didn't get as bad as she did last time

"Right well when I drop you off I'll go to the shop and get you some drink, but if I do that you have to promise me that you'll only have that drink and nothing more, now do you promise me that?"

"Yes I promise, would you really go in the shop for me" Jess asked

She couldn't believe how relaxed Rachel was being about it all as she'd always had her down as being really strict on things like going to parties and drinking

"Yes I'd rather you do it with me knowing about it than not knowing about it"

"Well thanks" Jess said smiling

"No problem, now are you going to wait in the car while I nip and get your sisters"

"Yeah don't be long"

Rachel got out the car and went to wait at the top of the playground. She spotted Olivia coming over so smiled and waved at her.

"Hey love have you had a nice day?" she asked smiling

"Yeah it's been okay"

Rachel picked up on her flat tone, it was really unusual for Olivia to sound upset as she was normally such a bubbly girl

"Are you sure everything's okay liv?" she asked sounding a bit concerned

"Yep" Olivia replied but her voice didn't sound right and it looked as though she was on the verge of tears.

Rachel decided to leave it for now as she knew by now the last thing Olivia would want was her making a massive deal about it in the school playground in front of all her friends, so decided to try and talk to her when she got home and see if she'd maybe open up to her a bit.

"alright love, are you going out with friends or anything tonight?"

"I think I might be going round Jenny's at about 8 for a sleepover if that's okay "

"Yeah fine by me, a sleepover will be nice"

Rachel was waiting for Chloe to come out but she still hadn't

"Where on earth has your sister got to?" Rachel asked beginning to get a bit worried

After waiting a bit longer Rachel decided to go and check up on her as she was getting a bit worried by now

"which one's Chloe's classroom?" Rachel asked

"erm it's the one on the end there" she said pointing

"Okay, gosh it's freezing out here and you forgot to take your coat this morning, you take my car keys love and wait in the car with jess, I'll just go and check up on your sister"

Rachel reached in her bag for the keys and handed them to Olivia. Olivia wandered off so Rachel walked over.

She looked into the classroom and saw Chloe sat with her teacher crying, so knocked on the door feeling quite worried now

Chloe's teacher stood up and walked over to the door and opened it for Rachel

"Hi it's Mrs Mason isn't it?"

"Rachel, is everything okay with Chloe?"

"Not really I'm afraid we've had a bit of an upset, I was going to see if I could spot you in the playground but I didn't want to leave Chloe when she was so upset"

"Oh dear what's happened?" Rachel asked sounding really worried

"Why don't you come in so we can all have a chat together?"

When Chloe saw Rachel stood there she suddenly felt really nervous and ran off to the hide in the toilets

"she seems really upset" Rachel said

"Yeah she is, look why don't you sit down, though you'll have to excuse the small chairs" Mrs Matthews said laughing

Rachel sat down opposite Chloe's teacher

"Well the thing is, Chloe finished up getting in quite a bit of trouble today. She hit another girl and pulled her hair quite hard"

"Really that doesn't sound like Chloe" Rachel said sounding surprised

"Well I was shocked myself, she's such an angel normally unfortunately I lost my temper and I think I scared her quite a lot, she seemed so upset the poor thing. Anyway I soon got the whole story it turns out someone was winding her up about her Mum and that's why Chloe got so angry"

"Oh no that would have really upset her, not that I'm condoning what she did"

"Well she's been ever so upset since, I thought I might call home but Chloe didn't want me to"

"No she'd probably have been scared she'd get into trouble, is it okay of I go and have a couple of words with her now"

"Yes of course"

Rachel smiled before going into the toilets, she found Chloe stood by the sink sobbing

Rachel crouched down so she was on her level and took her hand

"Hey love it's okay, why don't we get you home yeah I'll make us some nice hot chocolate and we can talk"

"Am I in trouble Rachel?"

"No you're not in trouble sweetie, it's okay I just want to have a talk back home yeah?"

Chloe gave a small nod of the head

"Yeah, that's what we'll do, now I think we need to wipe those tears up don't we, we don't want your sisters to see you all upset"

Rachel let go of her hand and grabbed some tissue and dabbed at her face a bit till she was looking considerably less blotchy

"There we go, you look better already"

"Thankyou Rachel"

"That's alright, lets go and grab your things and then we'll head back to the car and we can go home, it's okay you don't need to be frightened I promise you"

Chloe relaxed a bit, realising she really wasn't going to get in trouble

Rachel went and got her coat and bag and helped her into the coat before taking her hand

"Come on then my love, lets go back"

Rachel led her back to the car and made sure she was fastened up properly

"There we go"

Rachel got in and drove off

"You took your time Rachel, you promised you wouldn't be long" Jess said

"Well I'm sure you were fine, you are 15 after all jess, if you're old enough to be going out to parties then I'm sure you're old enough to be left alone in a car for 15 minutes" Rachel said "besides weren't you glued to your phone the whole time?"

"Oh shit" Jess said

"Language!" Rachel exclaimed "what makes you think it's acceptable to say that word in front of your 5 year old sister huh?"

"Rachel mrs guy confiscated my phone and I was meant to get it back at the end of the day but I forgot, can we go back and get it?"

"Oh jess I can't believe you" Rachel sighed but she knew they'd have to go and get it especially since Jess was out tonight and she'd need to keep in touch with her

They headed back to school and luckily the teacher who'd confiscated her phone hadn't gone home yet so she was able to run back and get it quickly

Finally they headed home and once they were back the 4 of them went straight in the house.

Chloe headed upstairs but Rachel wanted to talk to her so called her back

"Chloe quick word before you get changed love?"

Chloe followed Tachel into the kitchen and sat down at the table beside her

"Listen darling I'm not going to go on and on about what happened, your teacher explained why you hit that other girl"

"She was saying things about mummy"

"I know she was and that can't have been very nice for you to listen to and I can understand why you got as annoyed as you did but love you can't go around hitting people, it really isn't the right way to go around handling things a clever girl like you must realise that"

Chloe suddenly got all upset again, thinking that Rachel was having a go at her

"Hey it's okay there's no need for the tears, I'm not telling you off.. well not really anyway, but you must understand darling that if a teacher sees you hitting somebody then she's going to get really annoyed and I know you don't want that"

"I'm sorry"

Rachel gestured for Chloe to come and sit on her knee so she could give her a proper cuddle

She rubbed her back supportively

"Okay I think it's best if we say no more about it and you just put it behind you okay"

"Will you tell Daddy?" Chloe asked sounding really frightened all of a sudden

"I won't if you don't want me to darling but I'm sure he wouldn't angry once I tell him what happened"

"No please don't tell him" Chloe said her voice filled with panic

"Okay okay calm down its alright I won't tell him if you don't want me to"

"I really don't want you to"

"Then I won't love I promise"

Chloe stayed cuddled up to Rachel for a few more minutes and then went upstairs to get changed. Rachel was beginning to get a bit worried though about how scared Chloe seemed of Joe, she'd picked up on it while he was around but didn't really want to say anything to him, but she decided to keep an eye on everything.

Rachel got changed out of her work stuff and went downstairs to make herself a coffee

She was about half way through her coffee when she realised she'd forgotten to chat to Olivia, so she finished off her drink before going upstairs

She knocked on the door

"Liv it's me can I have a quick word love?"

"Yeah"

Rachel went in, when Olivia turned to face her Rachel could tell she'd been crying

"Olivia has something happened?"

"No"

"You've been crying, I can see that"

"No I haven't"

"So where's the tearstained face come from then huh?" Rachel said

"I'm fine I'm just being stupid"

"Why won't you tell me what's gone on huh, a problem shared and all that"

Rachel sat down on the bed and gestured for Olivia to come and sit beside her which she did

"Liv what's wrong, what's happened?"

"It's honestly nothing big"

"Well it doesn't have to be anything big if something or somebody has upset you then I want to know about it"

"It's nothing like that, it's just at school there going to be giving us these talks on growing up and sex and we're meant to give someone at home a letter to sign and have a talk at home about it and obviously everyone's going to talk to their mum but I can't and it's hardly like I can talk to Dad about it is it?"

" love, come here" Rachel said putting her arm around the girl and giving her a cuddle

"I know it's such a daft thing to get upset over, I just can't help it"

"It's not daft love, I can understand why you're so upset about it honestly I can, and I know at your age just how important it really is to have your Mum to talk to about all the stuff that's going on, but you know you can always talk to me about it all don't you huh? I know it might seem embarrassing but I promise I wouldn't make you feel awkward I just want to help"

"You wouldn't mind me talking to you about it? Wouldn't it make you feel embarrassed?"

"Oh love I work with about 600 teenagers daily and I've been your age once you know. Being a girl your age is tough and I understand that"

"Will you sign my letter for me?" She asked

"Yes of course I will, and if when you're having the talks there's anything that you're a bit unsure of or if any questions come up that you don't want to ask in front of the class, then you just come straight to me okay?"

"yeah. Thanks so much Rachel"

"That's alright my love"

Rachel signed her letter before putting the girls uniforms in the wash.

The evening went by quite quickly after that and before long Jess had gone off to her party and Olivia had gone to her sleepover so it was just Rachel and Chloe in the house

It was getting quite late by now and Rachel could see Chloe getting tired so decided to take her up to bed

"Right my love I think it's bedtime isn't it?"

"I'm not tired"

"The fact you're yawning suggests otherwise young lady, come on bedtime"

Rachel took her upstairs and got her changed and into bed

She sat on the edge of the bed

"Are you all comfy?"

"Yes"

"Good, night night my love"

Rachel kissed her on the forehead and flicked her nightlight on, she was about to go out when Chloe stopped her

"Rachel"

"yes darling"

"Daddy's not home tomorrow is he?"

"No he's not home till Sunday love"

"Oh"

Rachel thought this was a bit odd but just left it and went out.

Rachel wanted to stay up till Jess got home and luckily she came in on time reasonably sober

"Hey did you have a nice time?"

"Yeah it was really good"

"Oh good, and thanks so much for being in on time and for being sensible with your drink, I'm proud of you"

"Thanks Rachel, anyway I'm going to bed I'm knackered"

"Okay Jess I'll be up in about 15 minutes"

Rachel finished watching the tv show she was watching before going up to bed

She was feeling quite tired now so got into her pyjamas and went to sleep relatively quickly

However at about 1am she stirred when she heard crying next to her

She opened her eyes and saw Chloe stood crying

"Hey come on in next to me"

Rachel budged over and let Chloe come in beside her and cuddled up to her but she seemed really shaken up

"Did you have a bad dream?" Rachel whispered

"Yes"

"Want to talk about it?"

"No it's okay"

"Can you remember what happened in it?"

"No I don't remember"

"Okay sweetheart you just stay in next to me and we'll try and get back to sleep"

Rachel stayed awake till she heard Chloe snoring gently, she was beginning to get worried about her though, because there was something about her behaviour that just didn't seem quite right.

Please review xxxxxx


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Jess was sat in her bedroom, trying to get on with some homework but she couldn't really concentrate, over this last week or so she hadn't been able to concentrate on anything at all. A couple of weeks ago she'd had sex with a boy at a party, she'd been really drunk at the time and it had seemed like a good idea, but now she couldn't stop thinking about it and her period was a couple of days late so she was terrified she might be pregnant. She felt really alone and scared, but she knew that there was no one she could talk to about it because they'd all be so angry at her, she'd felt ashamed of herself ever since it happened and really wished she hadn't done it.

Rachel had just finished doing some ironing so came upstairs and knocked on Jess's door; she'd been a bit worried about Jess recently as she really hadn't seemed herself at all and thought a chat might be needed. She and Jess had got quite close recently so she hoped Jess might be able to open up to her a bit if there was something bothering her.

"Jess it's me, can I come in?"

"Yeah" Jess said

Rachel opened the door and found Jess laid on her bed just staring up at the ceiling

"You alright love?"

"Yeah why wouldn't I be?" Jess said immediately sounding all defensive

"No reason, you just looked a bit out of it that's all"

"Well I'm fine"

"Okay, I was just checking. I've brought your washing up"

"Oh right thanks"

Rachel would normally just leave the washing on the bed for Jess to sort out herself but decided to put it away for her

"So what are your plans for this weekend?"

"Nothing much"

"No parties or anything?" Rachel asked sounding surprised, as Jess would be doing something most weekends, even if there wasn't a party on she'd normally go out with her friends or go to one of their houses

"No"

"You could have your friends round here if you wanted"

"No it's okay I just want a quiet weekend"

Rachel could tell be Jess's tone that there was something not right, so she sat down on the bed next to her

"What are you doing Rachel? I've got loads of work to do"

"It can wait for a few minutes; I want to have a chat with you first"

"What about?" Jess sighed

"Well you haven't seemed yourself these last couple of weeks at all, you've barely seen your friends, your teachers say you've been really quiet in class, so I know somethings happened that's upset you a little bit, because all that isn't like you at all is it huh?"

"I'm fine" Jess said but tears were forming in her eyes already, but she hastily brushed them away

"Jess what's wrong, what's happened?" Rachel asked sounding concerned

"I said I'm fine, just leave me alone I don't want to talk to you" Jess said angrily

She thought Rachel was going to tell her off for shouting at her but instead she just squeezed her shoulder as she stood up

"Alright love, I'll go if that's what you want"

Rachel was about to leave but she turned back to face Jess

"Jess I know I'm not your mum and I'd never try and be your Mum but just remember if ever you did need to talk about something.. Well I'm all ears okay?"

Jess just nodded her head in response; she didn't say anything because she knew that if she tried to speak she'd just start crying

As soon as Rachel left Jess burst into floods of tears and couldn't seem to stop herself crying

Rachel went down and started making the tea; Olivia was sleeping at a friend's house tonight and Joe was working so it was just the three of them in the house.

Rachel decided to make carbonara with homemade garlic bread as she knew the girls loved this.

Once it was ready she called the girls down and the three of them sat at the table

As soon as Rachel looked at Jess she could see she'd been crying but she knew not to say anything in front of Chloe and decided to leave it till later

Rachel was also a bit worried about Chloe at the moment, it was mainly when Joe was around that she seemed really jumpy but she hadn't been sleeping well at all and there'd been a few times when Rachel would have to get up and see to her after she'd had a bad dream, but she'd never tell her what the dreams were about. She seemed quite relaxed at the moment though

"Girls do you two fancy going into town tomorrow?" Rachel asked, thinking they could have a nice day out

"Yeah can we go in the Disney store again?" Chloe asked sounding all excited, a new Disney store had just opened and Rachel had taken her there a few times and she'd absolutely loved it

"I think so love, what about you Jess do you want to go in the Disney store?" Rachel joked causing Jess to smile weakly

"I might just stay home"

Rachel really wanted to get Jess out the house as she seemed to spend all her time up in her bedroom at the moment, but she didn't want to push Jess at the moment

"Alright love, just see how you feel in the morning"

They'd been sat down for a while, when Chloe suddenly spilt her drink everywhere

"Oh Chloe" Rachel sighed

"I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to please don't get mad" Chloe said sounding absolutely terrified

Rachel was surprised at how scared she seemed and a bit worried too

"It's okay, I'm not mad" Rachel said however Chloe was in tears

"I'm sorry" Chloe mumbled through tears

Rachel went over and put her arms round her

"Hey it was an accident, it's okay love I promise, you didn't mean to do it did you?"

Chloe shook her head

"There so there's no reason to be mad" Rachel said "I'll just clean this mess up"

Rachel quickly cleaned everything up before sitting back down, though she was feeling quite worried about Chloe as she couldn't understand why she'd got so worked up about it

After tea Rachel got Chloe in the bath and into pyjamas before taking her downstairs for some biscuits and hot chocolate.

"You look tired darling, are you going to go to bed after you've finished them huh?"

"Yeah"

Rachel carried her upstairs to bed when she was finished

"Brush your teeth and go for a wee then I'll come and tuck you in"

Rachel managed to get Chloe settled reasonably quickly so went back downstairs and sat next to Jess on the sofa.

Jess had the TV on but Rachel could tell she wasn't really watching it and she was biting her nails which she never normally did

"What's this you're watching Jess?"

"Oh erm..I'm not sure"

"Well you've been in here watching it for half an hour, surely you have some idea what it is" Rachel said laughing

"I haven't really being paying attention to it"

Rachel sighed and nudged up a bit closer to Jess

"Love I know somethings happened, why don't I make us a coffee and we can have a chat"

For a moment Jess thought about opening up to Rachel but then decided against it, knowing she'd be really angry and would definitely tell her Dad.

"Just leave me alone Rachel, I've already told you there's nothing wrong with me so just leave it will you" Jess said before getting up and storming upstairs

Rachel thought about going after her but decided against it, wanting to give Jess the space she needed

Jess stayed on Rachel's mind the whole of that night and she couldn't help but worry about her.

When Rachel went up to bed at about 11ish she saw that Chloe was fast asleep, but she'd kicked all her covers up so Rachel went and tucked her back in, before kissing her gently on the cheek and stroking her skin.

She then closed Chloe's door and went into Jess's room, Rachel was sure that Jess wasn't asleep as she'd had the light on and then flicked it off when she'd heard Rachel coming up the stairs, but she decided to just leave her.

Rachel was feeling really tired by this point and ready for her bed, so as soon as she'd changed into her pyjamas she got into bed and fell asleep really quickly.

She woke up at about 3am because she'd heard someone getting out of bed. She wasn't going to get up at first because she presumed it was just one of the girls going to the loo or getting a drink, but when she heard them going downstairs she decided to see if everything was okay.

Rachel got out of bed and wrapped her dressing gown round herself and put her slippers on before going downstairs

She heard noises coming from the living room and when she went in she found Jess curled up on the sofa sobbing her heart out.

Rachel's heart melted when she saw her looking so upset and vulnerable, so she quickly went over and wrapped her arms round her

"Hey it's okay my love, shh it's all going to be okay" Rachel soothed

She sat down beside her and pulled her into her chest and let her have a good cry.

Jess was becoming more and more hysterical though which was getting Rachel really worried

"Jess you've got to tell me what this is all about, I don't care what you've done, there's nothing that can be as bad as all this" Rachel said gently

"Rachel I've done something really stupid"

"Okay, that's all okay love, we've all done stupid things in our time we wouldn't be human if we didn't, but you've got to tell me what it is that you've done, because that's the only way things can start to get better isn't it huh?"

"Yeah but you're going to hate me"

"Oh jess I won't hate you, I promise you whatever it is you've done I'll have done something 10 times worse in my lifetime and we can fix it no matter what it is"

"But if Dad knows he'll literally kick me out the house"

"I'm almost certain he wouldn't do that, but you're not telling your Dad at the moment are you? You're telling me and I'm not going to get angry or anything, I'm not going to shout I just want you to tell me what it is that's happened so we can fix it"

"But what if we can't fix it?"

"Trust me love there's nothing in this world that can't be fixed"

Jess thought about it and decided to tell Rachel, as she couldn't make her feel any worse than she already did and she couldn't just keep it to herself anymore as she knew she'd just end up breaking down

"Please don't get mad"

"I promise that I won't get mad"

"A few weeks ago at a party I met a boy and I really liked him, he was really attractive and easy to talk to and after a while I started kissing him and the more I drank, the more he took advantage of me and he asked me if I wanted to go upstairs and I said yeah, and I ended up having sex with him and I've hated myself ever since and my periods late so I'm worried I could be pregnant" Jess blurted out through tears

Rachel sighed, she felt really sorry for Jess as she knew how hard it must have been for Jess over the last few weeks, especially since she'd kept all of this to herself. Although Rachel wasn't entirely happy that Jess had slept with someone she didn't even know, she knew that it wasn't a good time to tell her this and right now Jess needed her support now more than anything else

"Oh love come here, come and give us a cuddle"

Rachel held her close and soothed her

"Yes it was a daft mistake to make, but you didn't need to punish yourself this much over it. You must have felt so shaken up"

"Yeah I did, I just can't seem to stop crying about it"

"I know love I do understand how you must be feeling. Jess was this the first time you've slept with anyone?" Rachel asked gently

"Yes that's what's making it even worse"

"Oh sweetheart, I know how hard it is really I do. But you've got to stop beating yourself up about it, I remember when I was just a little bit older than you and I met some guy and before long he'd pressurised me into sleeping with him and I'd never been more shaken up and upset and it's especially hard when you've got no one to talk to about it, but you should have come to me or your Dad, we're not here to judge we're here to help and we have all been a teenager before and done things we regret"

"I just feel so scared, what of he tells everyone about it and they all think of me as a slag"

"Hey I don't think he'd going to tell anyone, I'm sure he respects you enough not to tell people, but if he does we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, for now let's just get you feeling a bit better yeah?"

"Are you going to tell Dad?"

"Sweetheart I think I'm going to have to, if we found out I'd kept this from him he'd be so so annoyed, and if you were my daughter and you'd told someone else what's happened then I'd want to know about it"

"No please don't Rachel, please I'll do anything for you not to tell him"

"Oh love, I've got to really I have"

"No please don't tell him" Jess sobbed

"Jess we'll talk about it later"

"Are you going to tell him though?" Jess sobbed

"I don't know love, I think I might have to, but we'll talk about it when you're feeling a bit calmer"

"But I won't feel calm till I know whether you're going to tell him or not"

Rachel sighed and thought about it for a few moments

"Okay Jess I won't tell your Dad, but I think that you should"

"I can't please don't make me" Jess sobbed

"I'm not going to force you, but I think he needs to know, especially when it's made you this upset"

"I can't"

"Well I'm not going to make you, but if he does find out don't tell him that I know about it okay?"

"He won't find out and if he did I promise I wouldn't bring you into it"

Rachel sighed and put her arm round jess, she really did fell very sorry for her at the moment

"Do you feel a bit better for telling someone?"

"Yeah, thanks for not being mad"

"I don't think someone getting mad at you is what you need at the moment is it love, especially when you feel as scared and vulnerable as you do at the moment, I think it's more important that you've got someone to talk to and someone to listen to you"

"You're always so kind to me Rachel and I don't know why, I used to be a right cow to you"

"Well maybe it's because I understand why you behaved like you did towards me at first, it must be awful when you lose your Mum and see your Dad move in with another woman, especially when that woman's as horrible as I am" Rachel joked causing Jess to laugh

"Rachel what if I'm pregnant?"

"Well we'll have to deal with it won't we, though if you are please don't ask me not to tell your Dad because I really would have to in that situation. Did you say your period was late?"

"Yeah only a few days but it's getting me a bit worried"

"Well I know it must be a bit stressful, did you use protection when you slept with him?"

Jess just shook her head as tears filled in her eyes

"Oh jess, you know how dangerous it is to have unprotected sex, it's not just pregnancy you've got to worry about"

"I know, but we were really drunk at the time and we just didn't even think about it. I wanted to get the morning after pill but I was too embarrassed to go and ask for it"

"Well the few minutes of embarrassment is better than the alternative isn't it huh? But there's no point in me lecturing you is there? What's done is done and now we have to deal with it, so first thing tomorrow morning we're going to get you a doctor's appointment and I'm going to go with you and we'll see what's what, I can't promise it won't be embarrassing but it's something that you need to do"

"Okay"

"Well I don't know about you but I'm knackered so I think it's about time we headed to bed"

"Yeah, Rachel thanks for being…thanks for being so nice"

"That's okay, I just hope you feel a bit better"

"I feel loads better for talking to you, I've been so worried"

"Well that's understandable, I think most people would feel the same if they'd been through what you have"

Rachel and Jess went back upstairs and Rachel made sure Jess was comfy before going back to bed and going to sleep.

The following morning Rachel made an appointment for Jess but it wasn't till 2:30 so they still had chance to go into town.

They picked Olivia up from her sleepover before going into town

Rachel had a lovely time with the three of them, she really was getting close to all of the girls now and felt she had really bonded with them.

"Rachel I need to pick an outfit for our school disco, Dad gave me some money yesterday"

"Oh that sounds good, why don't we go to new look they normally have good dresses in there"

The four of them went in and before long Olivia spotted a dress that she really liked so went into the changing room to try it on, Rachel waited outside for her with Chloe

When she came out Olivia had a big smile on her face so Rachel could tell she liked it

"That looks gorgeous darling, it is very short though so I'm not sure how your Dad would feel about it"

"I'm sure he wouldn't mind, please can I get it Rachel"

"Of course you can, you do look lovely in it. I'll tell you what I'll buy you the dress and you could use your Dads money to buy some accessories to go with it, maybe even a bit of makeup seen as it's a special occasion"

"Really? Thanks so much Rachel"

Rachel smiled at her, she loved seeing Olivia so happy

After quite a bit more shopping the four of them headed home

Joe was back by the time they had to leave for Jess's appointment so Rachel told him that her and Jess were going to Tesco before going out

"Rachel I'm a bit nervous" Jess said when they were sat in the waiting room

"Of course you are, that's totally understandable but you'll be fine I promise you my love"

Before long Jess's name came up on the screen so the two of them went in

They sat down and Rachel explained everything as Jess had gone really quiet so the doctor ran a few tests

"Okay Jess well you're not pregnant"

Both Rachel and Jess breathed out a sigh of relief as it was something they'd both been really worried about.

"But we'll have to wait a few days for the results of the other tests"

The doctor had been really supportive so both Rachel and Jess thanked her as they went out, before going back to the car.

"Rachel thanks so much for everything"

"Its okay love, I'm just glad you talked to me in the end, and I hope you know you can always talk to me, no matter what the problem is"

Jess smiled at Rachel feeling happier now than she had done in weeks.

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	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It was a Friday after school and Rachel had just gone to pick the girls up from their primary school, while Jess was waiting in the car. Olivia came out quickly and went straight over to Rachel

"Hey love how was school?" Rachel asked

"It was okay, a bit boring though we had to do 2 hours of maths" Olivia said causing Rachel to laugh

"Oh dear, I know maths isn't your favourite, it wasn't mine either when I was at school"

"I just don't get any of it, it's so boring"

"Well unfortunately my love you'll be doing it for quite a few more years so I'm afraid it's just something you've got to get on with"

They waited a bit longer but when Chloe still hadn't come out Rachel told Olivia to go and wait in the car so she could go and check everything was alright with Chloe

Just as she was about to go over to the classroom she saw Chloe's teacher walking towards her so smiled at her politely

"Hello I've just come to get Chloe is everything okay with her?" Rachel asked

"Well actually that's why I wanted to catch up, I'm afraid Chloe's got herself into quite a bit of trouble, she's not been concentrating on her work at all and kept distracting everyone else and at break she got into a fight with another girl and ended up punching her so she's spent the afternoon in a different classroom but apparently she hasn't been much better there"

Rachel was shocked to hear all this as it really didn't sound much like Chloe, normally she was so well behaved

"Well I'm really sorry about all that, I'll make sure both me and her Dad talk about it with her, let her know it's completely unacceptable"

"Thank you, it is quite unlike her but obviously I still had to tell her off, I was really surprised though she's normally the star of my class"

"Well me and her Dad will talk to her and again I really am sorry, I'll make sure you get an apology from her on Monday"

"Thanks Rachel, would it be okay if I give you a letter for Joe to sign, it's just procedure really when we've had to move one of the kids to another classroom"

"Yes of course"

"It's just in the classroom; I completely forgot to bring it out earlier which was a bit silly of me"

The two women walked over to the classroom, Rachel glanced over and saw Chloe sat at the table biting her finger nails, something she always did when she was feeling nervous.

Rachel picked the letter up and then walked over to Chloe

"It sounds like you've got a lot of explaining to do young lady" Rachel said sounding stern

She never really disciplined the girls, as she didn't really see it as being her place and usually left it to Joe but she knew that she couldn't really leave this till Joe came home

"Get your stuff we'll talk back at home"

Chloe slowly started to pack her stuff away as Rachel walked over to the door.

A few moments later she turned round and saw that Chloe was still sat down

"Chloe I'm waiting"

When Chloe was ready they walked out together

"I'm really disappointed in you Chloe, I thought you knew better than to act like that"

Chloe didn't say anything in response just stared down at the ground

"Well I'll be speaking to your Dad when he gets home and I don't think he's going to be too happy about any of this is he?"

"No you can't tell him" Chloe said suddenly sounding scared

"Chloe if you've got into trouble then of course I'll be having words with your Dad, he has a right to know about these sorts of things" Rachel said

"But…"

"I hope you're not going to try and argue with me Chloe. You can go to your room when you get home too for and do a time out for 10 minutes"

"Rachel please don't tell him, I'll do a time out for the whole night and all of tomorrow but please don't tell Daddy" Chloe sobbed

"Chloe I'm talking to your Dad and that's final okay"

"Will you be there when he talks to me?"

"I don't know that's up to him, he might want to speak to you by yourself"

This seemed to get Chloe really scared and she was silent all the way back to the car as tears fell down her cheek

When they got to the car Rachel made sure Chloe was belted up before getting in the car and driving off

Despite what had happened Rachel couldn't help but feel worried about Chloe as she did look really frightened.

"Rachel I'm going out for a bit when we get home" Jess said

"Out where jess?" Rachel asked

"Just out"

"Not good enough I'll need to know where you're going I'm afraid"

"Jesus Rachel I'm 15 years old, I'm just going out okay"

"Mind your tone with me young lady and no it's not okay I need to know where you're going in case something happens"

"fine I'm going to a friend's house for a bit"

"Well why didn't you say that when I first asked you?" Rachel asked sounding a bit suspicious as she wasn't buying this

"I don't know, but can I go?"

Rachel sighed but realised she couldn't exactly stop Jess from going round to her friend's house

"Yeah fine but I need you back by 7ish for tea okay?"

"Yeah that's okay"

As soon as they got home Chloe ran upstairs to her bedroom before Rachel could say anything to her and Jess went upstairs to get changed

A few minutes later Jess came back down, she quickly said goodbye to Rachel before rushing out of the house

To Rachel's surprise about 5 minutes later Joe's car swerved onto the drive, even though he wasn't due in till later

He came in and went through to the kitchen

"Hiya love what are you doing home so early?" Rachel asked

"We were quiet and they owe me some time because of the hours I did last week" Joe explained

"Oh well it's nice to have you home so early" Rachel said smiling "Actually I need a word about Chloe, should we go and sit in the back room"

The two of them sat down on the sofa and Rachel explained everything that had gone on today, but she tried not to make it sound too bad as she knew how upset Chloe was about it

"Wait till I get my hands on her the little.." Joe said sounding really quite threatening

"Oh come on Joe, she's only a little kid and she seems really upset about it don't be too hard on her yeah?"

"Don't tell me how to deal with my daughter" Joe shouted

Rachel was taken aback by his tone, and almost felt a little scared of him

"Don't raise your voice at me Joe not in my house, and the last thing Chloe needs is someone shouting at her, so if that's all you're going to do to her then I'll deal with this"

"No you bloody won't, I'll go up and see her now"

Joe stormed upstairs leaving Rachel feeling really quite worried as she'd never seen him flip like that before.

A few minutes later Rachel heard joe screaming really loudly at Chloe so raced upstairs and barged into her room

For a second Rachel thought it looked as though Joe was about to hit Chloe but then she presumed she'd just imagined it

Joe stormed past her and a few minutes later she heard the front door slam

Rachel rushed over to Chloe and put her arm round her feeling really sorry for the little girl, even though she had been a bit naughty today she knew that the way Joe had treated her was completely unacceptable

"Chloe I'm sorry Daddy shouted at you like that, it was completely wrong of him and I'll make sure he apologies to you later for it"

Chloe put her head against Rachel's chest and relaxed into her properly so Rachel could give her a proper cuddle

"Does Daddy often get angry at you? Maybe when I'm not around hmm"

Chloe didn't say anything in response just continued to cuddle into Rachel

"Chloe you can tell me anything, you don't need to be frightened of me sweetheart"

It was obvious though that Chloe didn't want to talk about it so Rachel didn't want to force her, she was starting to get very worried though about what was going on as she'd seen a side to her husband tonight that she hadn't before and she didn't much like

"Am I still in trouble with you about today?" Chloe asked sounding scared

"Well I won't pretend I'm happy about it Chloe, I think that you and I both know that sort of behaviour is completely unacceptable, but I'm sure that between your teacher, me and your Dad you've been punished enough for today so I won't say anything else about it for now okay?"

"Thanks Rachel" Chloe said

"Okay love, are you feeling a little bit calmer now huh?"

"Yeah I feel okay now"

"Good stuff, now do you want to come and help me with a bit of baking"

Rachel hadn't been planning on doing any baking tonight but she figured that Chloe could probably do with doing something nice to take her mind off today a little bit

"Yeah that'll be nice"

"Okay well I'll go and see if Olivia wants to help too" Rachel said gently pushing Chloe off her knee so she could get up

"Rachel can I go to the toilet before we do the baking?"

"Well I think that's just about allowed" Rachel said laughing, but she was a bit worried about Chloe she did seem very shaken up after what had happened with her dad

Rachel went across to Olivia's room and opened the door

When Rachel came in she noticed that Olivia closed her laptop immediately which made Rachel wonder what it was she was looking at

"Why did you close your laptop as soon as I came in love?"

"I didn't"

"Yes you did, what were you looking at huh?"

"Nothing" Olivia said beginning to blush

"I'll only open it and check your search history, so I think you better tell me what it was you were looking at don't you?"

Olivia sighed but realised she couldn't really get out of this one so decided to tell Rachel

"one of my friends started her periods yesterday, and I thought that we wouldn't start till we were much older so I started to get worried that I might start soon, so I just wanted to look at what the signs were and it says that normally the best way to get an idea about when you'll start is to ask your mum when she got her first because normally it's about the same time, but I never asked my mum so I won't have any idea"

Rachel sighed realising she should probably have a little chat with Olivia about this, after all even though she wasn't Olivia's mum she was the closest thing she had to a motherly figure and it was going to be down to her to have these types of conversations with her

Rachel went over and sat down next to Olivia on the bed

"Darling if you were worried why didn't you come and have a little talk with me about it huh?"

"Because I didn't want it to be embarrassing"

"It doesn't have to be embarrassing love, look I know I'm not your Mum but I have been through all this stuff myself and I need you to be able to come and talk to me about this sort of stuff, I know that it can be a bit uncomfortable but it's so important you have someone to talk to my love"

"I'm just scared it'll happen all of a sudden and I won't know what to do, especially since I've got no idea when I'll start because I didn't know when mum started"

"Oh love asking you're mum when she started her periods is just one of the things you can do, there are lots of other signs too, you'll normally start to get a bit of a figure before you start and you'll be getting mood swings quite often"

"I have been quite moody, and then I feel really bad about being moody because I know how much it annoys everyone but then I get upset and that just makes it worse" Olivia said tears filling her eyes

"oh love come and have a cuddle"

Rachel put her arm round her and brought her into a cuddle

"Don't worry about getting moody, we all understand at the age you're at its hard, your hormones are all over the place because you're starting to grow up and you've got lots of other pressures too, what with preparing for your end of school exams and then you've got to worry about moving to a new school and everything. But do you know what? You're going to get through it all okay in the end I promise you"

"Really"

"Yeah really"

"Rachel can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can my love"

"How old were you when you started your periods?"

"Oh erm I think I was about 11"

"Did you tell your mum?"

"No we weren't really that close like that" Rachel said smiling slightly "But it made it a lot harder for me, not having anyone to talk to when it's such a big thing to happen to you"

"I'll tell you"

"well make sure you do, I want to be able to help you sweetheart" Rachel said "and if you have any other questions make sure you come and ask me, it's a lot better than looking things uo on the internet you'll find all sorts of crap on their that'll probably have you twice as confused as you were before"

"I'll come and ask you I promise" Olivia said smiling

"Good girl, now the reason I came in was to ask if you fancied doing a little bit of baking with me and Chloe, she's had a bit of a rubbish day at school today so I thought she could probably do with cheering up"

"Yeah that'll be really nice, I'll just get changed out my school stuff"

They had a nice evening together and Joe came back later in a considerably calmer mood but Rachel still didn't feel completely relaxed around him after what had happened earlier.

However as time went by Rachel began to get more and more worried about Jess as she'd said to be back by 7 but there was still no sign of her by 8

Rachel had tried ringing her a few times but Jess wasn't picking up

By the time it got to 8;30 Rachel was getting really worried as well as being really quite angry at Jess so she decided to go and have a look round for her in the car

While Rachel was driving she remembered how reluctant Jess had been to say where she was going tonight and this made Rachel feel even more worried

She searched round all the areas she thought she might be but couldn't find her anywhere

She had rang her about 10 times and there still wasn't an answer

Rachel was about to call home to see if Jess had turned up back there yet when suddenly her phone started ringing when Rachel looked she saw it was Jess's friend Katie, Rachel had given her her number once when she'd taken her and Jess to a concert so she could ring her in case they got split up

"Hey Katie" she said "Is everything okay are you with Jess?"

"Rachel somethings happened and we really need you" Katie said through tears

"Okay what's happened? I'll be there as soon as I possibly can"

"It's Jess she's been attacked, we're at the park" Katie sobbed

"What?" Rachel said in disbelief "Is she okay, do I need to call an ambulance"

"No I don't think so she's bleeding though"

Rachel stayed on the phone for a bit and then went towards the park as quickly as she possibly could

It took her a while to spot Jess and Katie and when she did panic flooded through her when she saw Jess sat on the wet ground, her lip bleeding as tears ran down her face

Rachel ran out of her car towards her

"Jess what happened?" she whispered

"we were meeting up with some guys and they started trying it on so we pushed them off but then they said they wouldn't go till we gave them our phones, I was scared so I handed mine over but Jess tried to stop them taking hers so they punched her till she gave them it" Katie explained

"Oh my god, Jess talk to me are you okay"

"Yeah" Jess cried

"It's alright love let's get you home and in the bath, it's going to be okay you're nice and safe now"

Rachel helped Jess to her feet and got her in the car

"Katie let me give you a lift home"

Jess stayed silent the whole way back even when they'd dropped Katie off

Rachel tried asking her some questions but she wouldn't reply so in the end Rachel just let her have some time to herself before helping her inside the house and up to her room

She explained to Joe what had happened but said Jess wouldn't want lots of people round her so she went back up to see her herself

When she went in Jess was crying again so she rushed over and pulled her into her chest

"shh it's okay you're safe now" she soothed

"I'm scared Rachel"

"I know but it's over now it's all okay"

Rachel tried to comfort her but nothing was working so in the end she helped her get changed into her pyjamas so she could get into bed, but Rachel was incredibly worried about her.

 **The next chapter will continue from this one, I was going to write more but I'm really tired and I've had a busy weekend so I could only write this tonight but wanted to update before tomorrow. Please review xxxxxxxx**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

 **Sorry for how long it's taken me to update, I've been very unwell. Also I know I said at the end of my last chapter that this was going to continue on from there but I decided I wanted to move things on a little bit so it's set a few weeks later.**

It was late on a Friday night, Rachel was still downstairs working but she was almost finished, the girls had gone to bed a few hours ago and Joe was away for the weekend so Rachel was trying to do all of her work tonight so that she could spend the weekend with the girls.

She was so absorbed in her work that she didn't realise Jess come downstairs.

Jess hadn't realised that Rachel was downstairs so she was surprised when she walked into the kitchen and saw her, she didn't want Rachel to see her tear stained face but she knew that she couldn't walk back out now, so went over to the fridge

Rachel jumped when she heard the fridge door opening and spun round

"Jess you scared me, I didn't even see you come in love"

When jess didn't reply to her Rachel could tell something wasn't right so looked over at her and could tell straight away that she'd been crying

"Jess what's happened?"

Jess sighed not really wanting to explain

"Nothing, why would anything have happened" she said

"Well something has, I can clearly see that you've been crying, so why don't you tell me what's up huh"

Jess was about to roll her eyes and go back to bed but suddenly tears formed in her eyes again, which she tried to brush away but she wasn't quick enough for Rachel not to notice

"woah what's caused all this hmm?" Rachel asked

When jess didn't answer she put her work down and went over and out her arms round Jess

Jess burst into floods of tears and started sobbing into Rachel

"come on I'll make us a coffee and we'll soon have you feeling better"

Jess didn't protest and went into the back room and sat down on the sofa while Rachel made them both a coffee before coming back and sitting down next to her and putting her arms round her

"Come on love tell me what's happened"

"It's nothing really I'm just being a bit stupid"

"Well I'll be the judge of whether you're being stupid or not, but I'm sure you're not being stupid love"

"I've done something really daft, I always finish up in these situations and it's all my fault"

"Come on darling it can't be that bad whatever you've done we can fix it"

Jess sighed but decided to tell Rachel as it was better than sitting in bed worrying herself about it all alone

"Well I've kind of being talking to this boy for quite a while and I really thought he liked me, but a few weeks ago he tried to pressurise me into you know…doing stuff with him, but I told him I didn't want to especially when we weren't even properly going out and after all the stuff last time..you know when I thought I could be pregnant, I just didn't want to go through all that again, but he wasn't happy at all and he's been so blunt with me over text and when I went on Instagram about an hour ago he'd put a photo on with this girl in my year who fancies him and he had his arm round her and everything"

Rachel listened while Jess explained everything to her and then gave her a proper cuddle

"Oh sweetie, I know how hard it must be for you really I do, but love I'm so proud of you, and you know what deep down he'll respect you so much for it and so will everyone else, and if that's the only thing he's after then you're far better off without him anyway, you don't deserve someone like that Jess, you deserve so so much better"

"I know you're right and that he's not worth it, I just miss talking to him, we got on really well and I honestly thought he was interested in me as a person and not just sex"

"I know love but before long you'll meet someone else who wants to get to know you for you and not just the other thing, but unfortunately that's all a lot of guys your age are interested in, but give it a few years and they'll start to change"

"I hope so"

"They do I promise, so for now you're best off just forgetting him and moving on, he's not worth any more of those tears okay"

"Okay" Jess said giving a weak smile

"Good girl, so are you going to do anything nice this weekend"

"I was wondering if I could go for a pizza and sleepover night tomorrow at Sophie's"

"Well you won't hear me saying no to that, it sounds really nice love, you deserve a good time with your friends you've been working so hard recently for your exams and I'm so proud of you" Rachel said causing Jess to smile

Jess really had got her head down recently, she'd always mucked on at school but now she was concentrating really well in all of her lessons as she was determined to end up with good results

"Anyway rach what time are you going to bed, you've been down here hours"

"Oh I'm coming up now, I've finished my work more or less and what I haven't can wait till Monday morning, I was going to ask if you wanted to come swimming tomorrow and then maybe go to pizza hut afterwards"

"Oh yeah that'd be good"

"Well it's to cheer Chloe up really, she's been so down all week, I found her in floods of tears last night in bed"

"Really did she say what was up?" Jess asked sounding worried as she'd noticed something wasn't right with Chloe and she really did care about her little sister a lot

"Nope she just told me she wasn't feeling well but I didn't believe her. Maybe you could have a quiet word with her, I'm thinking maybe she's in trouble at school and didn't want to tell us because she's frightened about getting in trouble"

"Yeah course I will, but surely if it was something serious school would have got in touch with you"

"Well you know what your sisters like it could be something small and she'll get so worked up about it"

"I know, I'll have a chat with her tomorrow sometime, she'll normally talk to me if she's worried about something"

"Thanks love and if she does tell you anything, tell me won't you?"

"Of course I will"

"Thanks, anyway are we going to get off to bed now, it's getting really late"

"Yeah"

They were about to go up when suddenly the door opened and Olivia came in

"Oh my goodness, we just need Chloe to wake up then we'll all be down here at 1 in the morning" Rachel said

"Sorry I just came to fill my hot water bottle up, my stomachs really sore"

"Oh is it, when did that come on love?" Rachel asked sounding a bit worried

"Before I went to bed"

"oh dear, I'll get some paracetamol for you that should help and then hopefully it should be feeling better by in the morning"

Once Rachel had sorted her out the three of them went back upstairs.

Before Rachel went into her room she went to check on Chloe, she noticed she'd kicked all the sheets off her bed so she went over but when she did she noticed how sweaty she was and her cheeks were till damp from her tears.

Rachel sighed feeling really sorry for her as she hated thinking of a girl as little as Chloe crying herself to sleep.

As she was sorting her quilt out Chloe stirred, she always had been quite a light sleeper

"Oh sorry darling I didn't mean to wake you up" Rachel whispered "You'd kicked the quilt off so I just wanted to put it straight for you"

"Can I come In your bed" Chloe asked

Rachel sighed, whenever Joe wasn't there Chloe always seemed to want to be in Rachel's bed and she didn't really want to make a habit of it but at the same time she didn't want her to be lying in bed upset by herself

"do you not think you could maybe try and go back to sleep in your bed?" Rachel asked gently

"I could try" Chloe said sounding really scared

"No its okay come on, you can come in with me just this once"

Rachel picked Chloe up in her arms and carried her through to the bedroom

As soon as she was in bed with Rachel Chloe went to sleep straight away

Olivia woke up a few hours later and her stomach ache was even worse than before, she got out of bed to go to the toilet however when she pulled her pyjama bottoms down she noticed that there was blood all over them, panic immediately flooded through her as she had no idea what to do, she'd not been expecting her period this early and she felt really scared about it all.

She ran back to her room and saw that her bedsheet also had blood on it.

She began to cry as she didn't know how to sort it, she knew she should probably tell Rachel but she felt really embarrassed about it at the same time and wasn't sure how she'd react.

In the end she felt so worried about everything she decided to go through to Rachel's room and wake her up

Olivia tried shaking Rachel awake and eventually she stirred

"Liv what's wrong is your stomach still hurting?"

"No well yes but I really really need you" Olivia sobbed

"okay darling, you go through to your room I'll be along in a second"

Olivia went back into her room and sat on her bed and waited for Rachel

A few minutes later Rachel came through and sat down next to her

"Oh dear I've had all three of you in tears tonight, jess, Chloe and now you"

"I'm sorry"

"Don't be silly, what's up hmm?"

"I think I might have started my periods" Olivia mumbled

Rachel felt quite shocked when she heard her say this as she hadn't expected that she'd start for a few years yet but she knew that there was no point in her acting stressed about it and she needed to be calm for Olivia's sake as she knew how frightened she must be feeling

"Alright love, it's okay it's nothing to be frightened about, what makes you think you've started"

"When I went to the toilet there was blood on my bottoms and it's over the bedsheet too"

"oh dear that must have been a bit of a shock love"

Olivia suddenly burst into tears so rachel brought her into her chest

"Hey come on its okay, I know it's a nasty shock but I promise you'll soon get used to it and after a while they really don't seem so bad"

"I'm just scared"

"I know you are, look let's get you sorted then we can have a little chat okay" Rachel said "I'll get you some pads, I've got a packet in my bathroom cupboard, do you know how to put it on?"

"Yeah"

Rachel sorted the bed out and took her stuff down to the wash while Olivia got changed

Rachel then came back up and got Olivia tucked into bed

"Now it'll probably last for about 5 days and it might get a bit heavier, but it's nothing to worry about"

"Will I have to tell my friends?"

"No of course you won't if you don't want to but maybe it'd be nice to talk to them about it huh?"

"I don't know, maybe"

"Well just see how you feel but you know you can talk to me about anything at all and if you've got any questions you know to just ask"

"Yeah"

"Alright my love, well maybe for now just go back to sleep and see how you feel in the morning"

"okay, thanks Rachel"

"You don't have to thank me darling I'm just so glad you told me straight away"

"You won't tell anyone else will you? Not Dad or Jess or anyone"

"No of course I won't if you don't want me to, I won't tell anyone at all, it's nobody else's business is it"

"Nope"

"come on then back to sleep sweetheart"

Rachel stayed with her till she could see she was settled and then went back to sleep herself

By the time morning came around everyone was feeling exhausted as nobody had, had very much sleep last night

Rachel woke up and turned over to face Chloe who was just waking up

"Good morning darling"

"Morning Rachel"

"did you sleep okay when you came in with me?"

"Yes"

"Good, I didn't wake you up with my snoring did I?"

"No" Chloe said giggling "I find it funny when you snore"

"Well I'm glad somebody does, it drives Joe mad"

Rachel decided to try and have another talk with Chloe now, thinking maybe she'd feel relaxed when it was just the two of them, she thought if she just talked to her about it casually she might get more out of her than if she sat down with her and ha a big talk with her about it all

"You looked like you might have had a bit of a bad dream when I came into your room last night you were all sweaty"

"Yeah I had a nightmare"

"Oh dear, I remember when I was about your age I used to have this nightmare every night for weeks about these pirates who'd start chasing me, I must have driven my mum mad the amount of times I woke up screaming, but I can still remember the dream really clearly even now after all this time, do you remember what your nightmare was about?"

"No I don't remember" Chloe mumbled

"That's funny, normally when people have a bad dream; they remember it for quite some time"

"Well I just don't remember it"

"They've been happening quite a lot haven't they, these bad dreams?"

"erm yeah" Chloe said beginning to feel uncomfortable

"and you sure you can't remember what any of them have been about?"

"I'm sure"

"Okay" Rachel said "If you don't want to talk to me about the dreams, do you think you maybe want to talk to me about why you've been coming in all upset everyday over these last few weeks hmm"

"I haven't I've just been poorly" Chloe said starting to get all worked up

"Chloe what's really going on come on you know you can talk to me love"

"nothing"

"You see you say that but there's something not right and I know it"

"I need to go to the toilet"

Rachel sighed but she knew there was no point in pushing her if she didn't want to talk to her

"Okay then darling, you go to the loo, just use my en suite"

Chloe jumped out of bed and went into the bathroom, leaving Rachel feeling even more worried about her than she had to start with

When Chloe hadn't come out after a few minutes Rachel gently opened the door and saw her sat crying

"Oh Chloe love I'm sorry I didn't mean to make you upset, I just wanted to talk to you"

"But there's nothing to talk about I'm okay"

"Okay, okay I believe you, I'm not going to go on at you if you don't want me to because I know that can make it worse, but I need you to know, if there's anything you want to tell me you can do love you mustn't feel afraid"

"I'm okay"

"Okay darling well lets dry those tears and have a nice day yeah, I was saying to Jess earlier that I quite fancied going swimming today but I don't think Olivia's very well so we can go to the cinema instead, and then maybe go to pizza hut for some lunch, how does that sound?"

"Really good"

"Good so that's a plan then"

Chloe stayed quite tearful all morning but when they went out to the cinema and then to pizza hut she seemed to cheer up quite a lot and was almost back to her usual self by the late afternoon but Rachel knew that something wasn't right and was determined to figure out what it was.

 **The next chapter will be fully focused on Chloe so I can finish that storyline, once again I am so sorry for how long this has taken me to write but I really have been really unwell, but I'll update again sometime this week to make up for not updating a couple of weeks ago.**


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

It was a Friday afternoon when Rachel got a call from Chloe's school asking if she'd come and pick her up because she was unwell. Rachel sighed, she knew that Chloe was probably just trying it on to get out of school, like she had been most days this week, but at the same time she was extremely worried about Chloe at the moment as they'd been having quite a lot of trouble with her sometimes she'd act up at home, but other times she'd just seem frightened and tearful and her nightmares seemed to have been getting particularly bad at the moment.

Rachel agreed to come down and get her as there was only a couple of hours left of school, so she though that she could maybe pick her up and bring her back to her office for a few hours, and then collect Jess and go back for Olivia and it would give her a chance to speak to Chloe's teacher and see if there was anything going on at school that might be causing all of this.

Rachel told Chris that she'd be gone for a little bit before grabbing her jacket and car keys and driving round to the school.

When she got there she parked up and went inside to reception.

"Hi I've just come to collect Chloe" Rachel said

"Oh yes, she's waiting in the library for you but I think Miss Miles would like a quick word first"

Rachel was a bit surprised by this as Miss Miles was the head teacher and didn't think she'd have that much to do with Chloe seeing as she was only in reception, but obviously she went through.

She knocked on the door and was told to come in and sit down

"Hi Rachel, thank you for coming in, I know it must have been a pain coming away from school"

"Oh it's no trouble, everything seems more or less under control for now at least" Rachel said smiling

"The thing is Chloe's teacher has been worried about Chloe and she's passed on some of these concerns to me"

"Well to tell the truth, I was going to come in anyway and ask for a word with Chloe's teacher, it's just that I've picked up on the fact things aren't right with her, she just seems really unsettled at home at the moment, one minute I'll have to tell her off because she's acting up and the next she's all tearful"

"well things have been pretty much the same here, we've had her being disruptive quite a lot which isn't like Chloe at all and the next minute she'll be quiet as a mouse, she told us this morning that she wasn't feeling very well and we were reluctant to send her home, but then at lunch one of the lunch staff found her in the toilets crying, apparently she'd been in there for about half an hour so we didn't really want to keep her here when she was so upset"

Hearing all this made Rachel feel really worried, even though she wasn't the girls mum she still felt very protective over her and cared about her a lot.

"I've tried talking to her, but she just doesn't seem to be able to open up to me" Rachel said

"How long is it since her Mum passed away?" she asked gently

"Oh erm I think it must be about 5 months now" Rachel said "She coped so well with it at first, I mean obviously when she moved in we had quite a lot of tears and upsets but it all seemed to settle down"

"Well often it can seem that way for a while, sort of like a way of coping they push it to the back of their mind almost pretend it never happened and then a few months later it all starts sinking in properly"

"You could be right"

"Does your husband talk about it with Chloe much?"

"to be honest he has to work away a lot, he's away till tomorrow actually so she doesn't get to see as much of him as she needs to"

"Well it might be worth them having a talk just the two of them perhaps"

"Yeah maybe it's what they both need" Rachel said

"Listen why don't you take Chloe home or back to work with you, try and have a little talk with her see if she might be able to open up even if it's just a little bit"

"Yes that sounds like a good idea, I'll go and fetch her now, did you say she's in the library?"

"yes if you go straight through the hall it's the first door on the right"

"Okay thankyou"

Rachel collected her stuff before going over to the library, she saw Chloe sat at the little table. Her heart melted when she saw her because she looked so alone and scared and her little face was still a bit red from her tears

She opened the door and walked over before crouching down next to her

"Hey sweetie, I've been told you're not feeling so good"

"Yeah I feel really poorly"

"What's making you feel poorly love?"

"My head hurts, my tummy hurts and I'm really hot"

Rachel put her hand to Chloe's forehead

"hmm you don't feel too hot to me" Rachel said, she knew full well that Chloe was pretending but she didn't really want to tell her off, especially when she wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on with her at the moment

"I feel really poorly though"

"Okay how about coming back to my office for a little sleep yeah?"

"Yeah"

Rachel got her book bag for her and took hold of her hand before going to the car.

She was going to try and have a little talk with Chloe on the way to school, but Chloe was obviously really tired as she hadn't had a very good sleep last night and ended up falling asleep in the car.

When they got to school, Rachel tried to stir her awake but she was flat out so she decided to just carry her inside and up to her office.

Luckily Chloe was very light for her age and it was lesson time so there were no kids getting in the way so this wasn't too difficult

Once they got up there, Rachel put her on the sofa and put some cushions under her head to try and make her comfy. She realised Chloe must be in quite a deep sleep as she was snoring gently.

She decided to get on with some work while Chloe slept.

About half an hour later Chloe began to stir so Rachel turned round and went over to her

"Hey you must have been tired; you were out of it I had to carry you inside"

"Yeah I was really tired"

"You feeling any better now?"

"A little bit"

"Good stuff" Rachel said "budge over for a second"

Chloe moved her legs over so Rachel could sit down

"Chloe do you think the fact you needed to come home today, well was this maybe more to do with the fact you're feeling upset than being poorly"

"No I really do feel poorly"

"Chloe I want to help you, but for me to be able to do that you've got to try and tell me what this is all about"

"It's nothing" Chloe said "I need to go to the toilet"

Rachel sighed realising she wasn't going to get anywhere with her again

"Okay love, do you want me to take you?"

"Yes please" Chloe said, as she didn't ever feel entirely comfortable going around Rachel's school by herself as some of the kids could be really scary.

Rachel got up and took Chloe to the toilet and once they got back Chloe decided she wanted to go to sleep again, although Rachel was almost certain she was pretending and was only doing It to make sure that Rachel wouldn't try and talk to her again

Eventually the bell rang signalising the end of school, so Rachel helped Chloe get her things together and then went to walk out to the car to meet jess, but when Rachel saw Jess stood there it was obvious she wasn't too happy

"What's with the long face, it's Friday remember I thought you'd be happy"

"I've got to do a detention every lunchtime next week"

Rachel sighed, Jess's behaviour had improved so much lately and she'd really got her head down so she wondered what had happened

"Why what have you done Jess?"

"Miss Simpson caught me cheating on this stupid science test that's completely insignificant"

"hey hang on if you were cheating then you absolutely deserve to be in detention young lady, there is nothing I hate more than cheaters Jess, it's awful I would far rather you got a D than cheat your way into getting an A"

"Alright you don't have to go on and on about it, don't you think I've already heard it all off everyone" Jess snapped tears forming in her eyes

"Jess we'll talk about it back at home, this conversation is not over" Rachel said sounding stern

She was about to go and pick Olivia up when she got a text off one of Olivia's friends mums asking if it was okay if Olivia came over for tea, Rachel agreed before driving home

"Rachel I'm going to go and play round Sophie's when I'm home" Chloe said

"Oh no you're not, you know the rules young lady if you're too poorly to go to school then you're too poorly to play round friends' houses I'm afraid"

"But I want to"

"tough"

"I'm feeling better now"

"Chloe my answers no"

"That's not fair you can't tell me what to do, you're not my mummy"

Rachel sighed but knew she had to stay calm

"Fine well I'll ring your ad when I get in and see what he has to say about it"

"No"

"Okay that's settled then, I may not be your Mum Chloe but you know as well as I do that when you're Dad isn't here I'm in charge so we go by my rules okay?"

Chloe didn't answer her just stared out the window

"Okay?" Rachel repeated

"no its not okay"

"Chloe don't make me lose my temper with you, you know I don't want to, just be a good girl yeah"

Chloe remained silent for the rest of the journey back and when they got in she went up to her room

Rachel put all her work stuff away and had 10 minutes to herself before going up to Jess's room and knocking on the door

"Yeah"

Rachel went in and sat next to Jess on the bed

"Jess why did you cheat?"

"Look please can we just forget it Rachel I really don't want to talk about it with you"

"I know, and I'm not going to go on and on I just want to know"

"Because I'd forgotten we had the test, and I was worried about it because I'd been doing well in science and I didn't want to let everyone down, so I googled one of the answers, I know it was stupid"

"Oh jess we know you've been working hard, you didn't have to cheat love, no one expects you to do well on every test you take"

"I know, I'm really sorry"

"Okay, I'm not going to lecture you I'm sure you can understand why it isn't really acceptable, so no repeats yes?"

"I won't do it again I promise, I felt awful when I got caught"

"Okay well then I don't think I need to say any more about it then do I huh?"

"Thanks Rachel..you know for not going mad and everything"

"That's alright, believe it or not I'm not a complete monster Jess" Rachel said smiling slightly

Rachel stayed with Jess for a bit longer before going downstairs.

She did some work for a bit before deciding she should probably check on Chloe

She was surprised when she wasn't in her room but presumed she'd gone to the loo, but when there was no sign of her after a while she began to get worried.

She searched all-round the house but couldn't see her anywhere.

Panic flooded through her but then she suddenly remembered that she'd said she wanted to play round Sophie's so went marching round her house, ready to have a go at Chloe for disobeying her.

But it turned out Chloe wasn't round Sophie's after all

By this point Rachel was really worried and after searching round for her for a bit longer decided to go back and ring Joe and let him know what was going on.

It was quite cold and it had started to rain which made Rachel even more scared for her safety

"Jess I'm going to go out in the car and look for her, you stay here In case she comes home" Rachel said as tears formed in her eyes

Rachel went out and searched for her for about half an hour when suddenly her phone rang, she saw it was Jess so quickly picked it up

"Jess is everything okay?"

"She's come home; she's okay just soaked through"

"Thank Christ she's okay, what was she thinking"

"She said she just wanted to go out and play"

"Wait till I get my hands on her" Rachel said suddenly sounding quite angry

She drove back and ran upstairs to Chloe's room

Jess was with her and was just about to get her changed

"What on earth were you playing at young lady I was worried sick" Rachel said

"I don't know"

"I can't believe you'd just run off like that, you must have known how worried you'd make me you silly girl" Rachel said sounding more scary than she intended to

"Did you tell Daddy?"

"Yes I did and tomorrow he's going to be wanting some serious words with you Chloe"

Hearing this made Chloe feel physically sick and fear flooded through her

"I'm sorry"

"saying sorry isn't really good enough and I'm going to need a proper explanation, but for now let's pop you in the bath and get you warmed up yes?"

Rachel ran a bath and Chloe undressed and got in

"even if you weren't poorly before you certainly will be now, you'll catch a cold being out in that"

"I was poorly before" Chloe mumbled

"Hmm if you say so" Rachel said suddenly though she noticed an awful looking bruise on Chloe's stomach and a nasty scratch on her back to

"Chloe where did those marks come from?"

"Oh I fell over yesterday playing tig"

"Right I see, maybe we'd better put something on them, they look pretty nasty why didn't you show me them the other day huh?"

"I forgot"

Rachel couldn't help but feel a bit suspicious about this and began to wonder if maybe someone was bullying Chloe or something and that's why she felt so scared

"Rachel I'm really really sorry" Chloe said suddenly coming over all tearful

"Okay don't get upset, I just don't really understand why you did it love that's all"

"I don't know"

"You don't know or you don't want to talk about it at the moment?"

"Don't want to talk about it at the moment"

"Okay we'll talk later then"

"Can I go to sleep for a bit?"

"If you want to then of course you can"

Rachel got Chloe out of the bath and got her dried off and into pyjamas before getting her into bed

"Have a little sleep till tea time then love"

However Chloe was knackered and didn't want any tea so Rachel decided maybe it was best if she just let her have a really good night's sleep.

Rachel and Jess went to bed quite early too as they'd both had a bust week.

Chloe woke up at about midnight and realised she'd had an accident, which caused her to burst into tears as she knew Rachel would tell her Dad and she was scared enough about telling Rachel.

Rachel had woken up anyway and heard Chloe crying so went straight through to her room

"Chloe love its okay, have you had a bad dream" she asked going over and sitting next to her

"No, I've done something really bad, please don't tell Daddy"

"Why sweetheart what have you done?"

"Will you tell..Daddy" Chloe asked barely able to speak through all her tears

"Don't worry about Daddy, just tell me what's happened Chloe"

"I've had an accident"

"Oh darling that's okay" Rachel whispered "Chloe look at me, listen I'm not cross its okay"

"Do you promise you're not cross?" Chloe cried

"Hey why on earth would I be cross, it's not your fault my love, it's just one of those things"

"Are you going to tell Daddy?"

The amount of fear that Chloe was showing here was getting Rachel really worried

"Chloe why don't you want me to tell Daddy love?"

"Because he'll get really mad" Chloe sobbed.

Suddenly things began to make sense to Rachel, she hated to think that she was right but some of the signs were there and the thought she could be right made her feel sick, but she knew she needed to remain as calm as possible

"Does Daddy often get mad Chloe?"

Chloe nodded her head

"When does he normally get mad, is it when I'm here? Or when I'm not here"

"When you're not here"

"Okay love and do you think you could maybe tell me what sort of things he does when he's mad, it's okay you're not in any trouble at all"

"He only does it when I'm bad"

"Only does what darling?"

"he…he shouts at me and then he hits me and sometimes its so bad it makes me bleed, but now he's going to know I've told you and I'm going to get in so much trouble and he'll hurt me" 

Rachel couldn't believe what she was hearing, but knew it all made sense, she felt sick thinking this had been going on in her own house and she'd known nothing about it.

She wrapped her arms round Chloe and gave her a huge cuddle "No sweetheart he will never ever touch you again and I promise you that, you've been so brave telling me this Chloe and It stops right now"

Chloe sobbed into Rachel for a while before sitting up

"Here's what we're going to do my love, we're going to get you changed and then you're going to come into my bed with me and everything is going to be all okay"

Once Rachel had Chloe sorted she took her into her room and before long Chloe fell asleep, but Rachel stayed awake for hours later wondering what on earth she was going to do and stewing over everything that had been happening wondering how on earth she could have missed all the signs.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

About 2 weeks had passed since Rachel had found out what had happened to Chloe, she'd confronted Joe about it immediately afterwards and although at first he had denied everything in the end Rachel had pushed him so much he'd ended up breaking down and admitting everything. Rachel was in shock when she'd heard him admit it; she'd remained calm though for Chloe's sake as much as anyone's.

At first Rachel had been tempted to go to the police, but she knew that in the long run this wouldn't be what was best. Joe had left the girls with Rachel and agreed to see a specialist to help him deal with his problems and manage his anger, but until he'd fully tackled these issues him and Rachel had agreed he wouldn't go anywhere near the girls and he was renting a flat at the moment.

Rachel was coping surprisingly well considering the shock of it all, however the girls were still extremely upset. Jess and Olivia couldn't believe it when Rachel told them everything, at first they got angry at Chloe accusing her of making it all up, but when Rachel had pointed out some of the bruises they felt sick at the thought of what they're Dad had been doing to Chloe.

Since Joe had left Chloe had been acting really weirdly, although Rachel had made allowances for it at first, now she knew something needed to be done or Chloe was going to finish up in really big trouble at school because she'd been very disruptive.

Rachel found it so difficult to tell her off though, because one minute she'd be acting up and the next she'd be really tearful so she didn't have the heart to shout at her.

It was quite early on a Friday morning but Rachel was already awake, ever since everything had happened she'd finished up waking really early most mornings, she'd also had difficulty getting to sleep, however she wasn't the only one as Chloe had kept her up most nights.

She stayed in bed for a while before getting up and going in the shower.

She stayed in for about 15 minutes before getting out and getting dressed for work and then going to wake the girls up.

She started in jess's room as she knew she'd take the longest to get ready, she knocked twice on the door but when she didn't get any response she just walked in.

"Jess come on love it's time to get up" she said shaking her awake

Eventually jess stirred and opened her eyes but quickly shut them again

"Oh come on jess, just make my life a bit simpler and wake up"

"I can't be bothered" Jess mumbled "I want to stay in bed"

"I know but it's the last day of school today isn't it then it's the weekend"

Jess sat up in bed, there was something she needed to ask Rachel but she could already guess what the response would be

"Rach I was just wondering, if you'd maybe let me go to Joe Thompson's party tonight"

Rachel sighed, even she'd heard about this party from all the talk that was going round the school and it definitely wasn't something she wanted Jess to be going to

"I think you already know what my answer to that's going to be love" Rachel said gently, but she could feel this was going to lead to a big argument

"Are you being serious? That's so unfair everyone in my years going"

"Jess he's a sixth former, there's about 100 people going I'm sorry but I'm going to say know and you're not going to change my mind"

"So you're going to try and control my life, do you just want me to be some sad little freak who never goes out and never gets to go anywhere?"

"Come on Jess I think you're being a bit unfair, I hardly ever stop you from going out I just think it's not the best idea and its asking for trouble if I do let you go"

"I can't believe you, you're so bloody unreasonable"

"Look my answers no, but why don't you have a friend round or something huh"

"I'll go to Holly's" Jess replied sulkily "Her mum won't let her go either"

Really Jess had absolutely no intention of going to Holly's, her and Holly had made a plan where if they weren't allowed to go they'd go round to Samantha's whose parents were really relaxed and get ready round there and Holly would say she was spending the night at Jess's and Jess would say she was spending the night at Holly's

"Well that seems like a good idea love"

"Yeah it should be okay"

"I'm sorry if you think I'm being unfair about the party and everything it's just that I really do think it's for the best and you know I've only got your best interests at heart"

"Yeah I know, I just wish I was allowed to go, but it's okay I knew you'd say no I just thought it was worth a try"

Rachel was surprised at how calm Jess was being about it as she thought it would have led to a big falling out between them, but she was quite relieved too

"Well thank you for being so mature about it Jess, I really appreciate it"

"It's fine; I'll still have a good night at Holly's won't I?"

"Yes of course you will"

Rachel smiled and then left, before waking Olivia up and then going into Chloe's room

Chloe was sat up in bed and it looked like she'd been crying

"Hey Mrs is everything alright hmm?"

"Yeah"

"Good, are you going to get up and start getting ready for school then?"

"I don't want to go to school today Rachel"

"I know you don't want to go to school today neither do I if I'm being perfectly honest, but unfortunately we both don't have much choice"

"I can't go I'm poorly"

Rachel sighed before sitting down on the bed next to her

"How do you feel poorly?"

"My tummy hurts"

"Right well I'm sure you'll live come on you'll be fine once you get up and start getting ready"

Very reluctantly Chloe started getting up and getting ready for school

By the time everyone was ready to leave the house and get ready for school, Rachel already felt like she was ready for bed again because she was so tired.

She dropped Chloe off before going into work.

At about lunchtime she checked her emails and noticed Chloe's teacher had emailed her telling her about an incident today where Chloe had hit a boy who had stolen her pens.

Rachel sighed heavily she really didn't know what to do, but realised this needed sorting properly or Chloe was just going to get worse and worse.

When the end of day came she went to find Jess to say goodbye before she went to Holly's and arranged to pick her up at 11 from Holly's house.

Jess felt a bit panicked by this as obviously she wouldn't be at Holly's house she'd be at Samantha's but decided to just text Rachel tomorrow telling her they'd gone over to Samantha's on the morning so she'd need picking up from there

Rachel then got in her car and drove over to the primary school. She was a bit late because there was really bad traffic so by the time she got there Olivia and Chloe were already waiting for her in the playground; Rachel wanted to say something to Chloe straight away as she wanted her to know that she was angry with her.

They started walking back to the car

"I heard about what happened today young lady and I'm not one bit happy" Rachel said to Chloe once they were back in the car

"I don't care if you're not happy" Chloe said rudely

"Hey don't you take that tone with me young lady" Rachel said sharply

"It wasn't my fault he should have stolen my pen"

"That does not excuse you hitting someone Chloe and you know that every bit as well as I do"

"I don't care, he deserved to be hit"

"Hey stop that right now, I don't know where all this has come from but I'm not going to tolerate it any longer Chloe"

"Shut up"

"Right you can spend 5 minutes in your corner when you get in"

"Good I don't want to be with anyone"

"And you can drop that attitude with me right now" Rachel said raising her voice now

Chloe didn't say anything and just stared out the window as tears formed in her eyes, Rachel noticed them but didn't say anything, she wasn't about to go soft on Chloe just because she was crying as she knew she needed to start being firmer with her.

As soon as they got in Chloe walked over to her corner and sat down

After 5 minutes had passed Rachel walked back in

"Are you going to apologise?"

"Sorry"

"Right go up to your room and get changed, we'll discuss it again later"

Chloe went upstairs and lay down on her bed but as soon as she did she just burst into floods of tears

Rachel came up a few minutes later to get Chloe's uniform off her

She sighed when she saw her on her bed sobbing her heart out

However angry Rachel felt, she knew in this situation shouting wasn't going to do much good at all

She went over to Chloe and sat next to her

"Come on you, up you get"

Chloe was shaking all over and felt really sick

She sat up but then ran to the toilet and started being sick

Rachel held her hair back and rubbed her back

"There we go it's alright I've got you, I'm here" Rachel soothed

When Chloe had finished being sick Rachel flushed the toilet and then picked the little girl up in her arms

"Honestly Mrs what am I going to do with you huh?"

She carried her through to her room and sat her down on her lap, Chloe relaxed into her chest and wrapped her arms around her

"It's okay, I'm not angry" Rachel said "but we do need to have a little talk I think"

"I'm sorry"

"The thing is Chloe I know how much you're hurting and I honestly can't imagine what you're going through and there's no wonder you're hurting but sweetheart things can't go on like this, there comes a point where I've got to say enough is enough. I know the only reason you're acting up is because of everything that's happened and that's understandable but we've got to try and move on now my love"

"I know, I'm really sorry"

"You don't have to be sorry" Rachel sighed "Chloe you do realise you can talk to me don't you, whenever you need to"

"Yeah but I just don't know how to bring it up"

"Oh love all you need to do is come and find me and say you want a private chat, even if I'm busy I'll always always make time for you"

"Thank you"

"Okay, but Chloe please let this be the end of it yeah, I don't want to have to shout at you really I don't"

"It will be I promise"

Rachel gave her a proper cuddle before heading downstairs

She made a start on tea while treating herself to a large glass of wine, she felt she really needed it after the week she'd had

The rest of the evening went by really quickly and before long it was time for Rachel to get the girls to bed.

She stayed up till about 10:30 and was about to go to bed and the phone rang

To her surprise it was Holly's mum

"Oh hi there"

"Hi sorry for ringing so late, I hope I haven't woken you up?"

"oh no I've just been watching tv don't worry about it, is everything okay with jess?"

"Jess? She's at yours with Holly isn't she?"

"Erm no she told me she was sleeping at your tonight"

"no"

Rachel couldn't believe it but she had a very good idea where the two of them would be

"look I think they're both at a party"

"Oh god that sixth formers, Holly hasn't shut up about it"

"Yep Jess has been exactly the same" Rachel sighed "Just wait till I get my hands on her"

"what are we going to do, I really don't want her round there, I can't believe this I really thought I could trust her"

"I can still access the school system from my work laptop I'll get his address and go round to get them; god knows what state they'll be in though"

After talking with Holly's mum for a bit longer, Rachel hung up and went upstairs and got his address. She didn't want to leave the girls but thought Olivia would be okay but was worried about Chloe, because she knew how scared she'd be if she woke up and Rachel wasn't there, so she woke her up and told her they needed to go in the car.

Rachel put his address in the satnav and drove round to his house as quickly as she could, Chloe had fallen back asleep on the way back.

When she got round, she could see the place was packed with drunken teenagers.

Luckily Rachel quickly spotted Holly and Jess and went over to them; she couldn't believe it when she found the two of them smoking

The two of them were so drunk they could barely stand

"Rachel what are you doing? Come to join the party" Jess slurred

"Get that thing out your mouth and come with me, and that applies to you two holly"

The two of them stumbled their way to the car, but Rachel was getting worried suddenly Holly fell over and Rachel had to help her back up, but when she saw her eyes she realised her pupils were huge

She turned round to face jess and realised hers were the same

"Have you two done drugs?" Rachel asked horrified

"no"

"Don't you dare lie to me jess, now have you done drugs" Rachel said sounding quite scary now

"Just a bit of weed"

Rachel couldn't believe what she was hearing, but right now she was too angry to say anything

She grabbed the two girls by the arm and practically dragged them to the car and then drove off.

She didn't say a word while Holly was in the car, when they'd reached her house she helped her inside and explained everything to her mum

She then got back in the car

"You angry rach" Jess said laughing

"Come tomorrow I'll be wiping that smile straight off your face, I cannot believe this Jess, you have got absolutely no idea the kind of trouble you are in, I have never felt more angry in my entire life"

In jess's drunken state though, this just made her laugh even more

"Stop that right now young lady or I swear you will not be coming in my house tonight" Rachel threatened

Chloe woke up to the sound of shouting and got all confused

"It's okay Chloe, we're going home now"

"I really need a wee"

"So do I" jess slurred "I might just go In the car"

"Don't you dare, this is your final warning jess"

"Rachel I really do need one though"

"It's okay just hang on for a few minutes then we'll be home"

"I feel sick"

Rachel put her foot down a bit, the last thing she needed was Jess being sick and Chloe having an accident.

Luckily they made it home in time but as soon as she walked in Jess was sick on the floor, luckily though it was wooden

"oh just get out of my sight jess" Rachel screamed before cleaning it up

After Chloe had been to the toilet Rachel took her back to bed

"Are you alright darling? I'm sorry for shouting in front of you"

"Was jess naughty?"

"Yes she was but it's nothing for you to worry about, are you ready to go to sleep?"

"Yeah"

"Okay, night night darling, just come through to my bedroom if you need me"

Rachel gave her a quick kiss before going off

She went downstairs and found Jess passed out on the living room floor

She managed to bring her round by slapping her a few times

"Get up" she said icily

"No"

"Yes, I'm not having you throwing up on my carpe, if you're going to be sick you can do it in your own bed and you can clear up the mess in the morning"

Rachel had to drag her to her feet and get her upstairs

When jess was in this state she didn't really want to leave her as she was scared she'd finish up getting really ill during the night

"you're sleeping next to me"

Rachel managed to get her into some pyjamas and into her bed.

Rachel finally got into bed herself and then jess started crying

"Cut it out Jess"

"I want to go back to the party"

"I'm warning you jess shut it"

"No one loves me anymore, Dad's gone and he loved me even though he was mean to Chloe and mum died and now I've got no one"

Even though she was angry Rachel couldn't help but feel sorry for her

"That's not true"

"Yes it is, you hate me"

"I don't hate you jess, I'm bloody furious with you, you've been incredibly stupid and you will be grounded for the rest of your life but don't you think mostly I'm just incredibly worried, do you think I'd have insisted you sleep in my bed if I didn't care about you"

"I've only got you now though and I don't want you to be angry" Jess slurred through tears

Rachel sighed but reached and got some tissues from her bedside cabinet

"Come on, there's no need for all this is there?" Rachel said her voice a lot softer "now let's dry these tears and then get you to sleep, just prepare for the biggest lecture ever tomorrow"

Eventually Rachel managed to get Jess off to sleep but then Chloe came in crying

"Oh dear not another one in need of tissues, what's the matter sweetie?"

"I can't sleep" she said "I've really tried I just can't"

"Oh love, it isn't very nice when that happens is it, come on, come in with me that might help a bit"

"Why is jess here?"

"She can't sleep either, come on come and have a cuddle"

Before long everyone fell asleep after a very long day


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Sorry it's taken me ages to update just had so so much on!

It was the morning after Rachel had found Jess at the party.

Strangely enough Jess woke up first and got a shock when she realised she was in Rachel's bed, but soon remembered what had happened the night before and let out a huge sigh. She couldn't believe the state she'd got herself into last night and couldn't begin to imagine how much trouble she'd be in with Rachel.

She heard Rachel snoring so knew that she must be asleep and decided to get up before she had a chance to wake, because right now the last thing she needed was Rachel shouting and giving her a lecture.

Jess went back into her room and picked up her dressing gown and wrapped it round herself before going downstairs.

She got a shock when she went into the living room and found her little sister already in there curled up on the sofa. She'd been sucking her thumb when Jess had come in put she quickly pulled it out of her mouth feeling really embarrassed, jess pretended not to have noticed though

"Chloe what are you doing down here already"

"I woke up early, and you and Rachel were still asleep so I came down here"

"Budge over then"

Chloe sat up and made room for Jess to sit down next to her

As soon as Jess sat down Chloe snuggled into her

"Jess is Rachel angry with you?"

"Yep she is" Jess sighed

"How angry?"

"God knows, I'd say pretty angry though"

Jess was actually beginning to get quite worried about what she was going to say to her, although Rachel was normally quite calm Jess had seen her loose her temper on a few occasions and it really wasn't nice

"She was angry with me yesterday but she didn't shout too much"

"I don't think she'd ever get properly angry at you Chloe"

"Is she going to get properly angry at you?" Chloe asked, beginning to get a bit worried now as she didn't like the idea of Jess getting into trouble, she really did love her big sister a lot

"Probably" Jess said trying to act casual "But hey its nothing for you to worry about, I'm tough enough to handle Rachel don't worry"

"But she can be scary when she shouts"

"Don't pay any notice of her, she might be a bit of an old witch when she's mad but I'll always be able to handle her" Jess said

She hadn't realised Rachel had woken up and had come downstairs so she'd heard everything that had been said

"The old witch is stood right here Jess" Rachel said with her eyebrows raise

Hearing Rachel's voice made Jess jump and she spun round to face her

"Sorry about last night" she said quickly

"I don't think that's quite going to do it is it Jess? Me and you have got an awful lot of talking to do and it's going to start now, and before we even begin to talk about it all I think it goes without saying that you're grounded"

"For how long?"

"Till I say so young lady"

"But its Alicia's party next week, I can't not go to that she'd one of my best friends"

"You can forget it Jess"

Jess sighed she knew what she'd done was wrong but she couldn't help but think Rachel was being a bit unreasonable about it all, and she'd been looking forward to Alicia's for weeks

"But Rachel…"

"Jess you can't seriously think there's any discussion to bed had here, maybe you should have thought about the consequences before deciding to sneak off to a party that I had absolutely forbidden you to go to" Rachel said her voice starting to sound angry now

It was only then that Rachel remembered that Chloe was still in the room, she knew it wasn't a very sensible idea to discuss all this in front of her, it definitely wasn't something for her little ears!

"Chloe love how about you go and play upstairs for a bit while I have a chat with Jess"

"Please don't shout at jess" Chloe said sounding scared

"Darling it's nothing for you to worry about, it's not your problem it's your sisters" Rachel said

"Okay" Chloe mumbled "Rachel I don't feel that well"

"oh really why?"

"Well I woke up a few times because my tummy was sore but then it felt better so I didn't wake you, but now it's sore again"

"Oh dear well how about you go upstairs for a little bit and have a lie down, see if it feels any better and if not then I'll give you some medicine okay?"

Chloe went upstairs so Rachel got up and closed the door before sitting next to jess

"before I start, I just want to tell you how disappointed I am in you Jess"

"Look we don't need to do this"

"yes we do, I don't stop you doing much jess believe or not I do have quite a lot of trust in you, so that's why I'd never normally stop you going to parties and having fun, but there were good reasons why I didn't want you going to that one and that's why I said no, I do not expect to have the trust I've given you thrown straight back in my face and I certainly didn't expect to find out you'd done drugs, because I honestly thought you were better than that Jess"

Hearing Rachel say all this made Jess feel quite upset but she was determined not to cry as she hated crying in front of other people

"Do you have any idea what kind of state you were in last night jess, you threw up everywhere, I had to put you in my bed because I was scared you were going to choke on your own sick or something, now there's a big difference Jess between going out and having a good time and ending up in that state, you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself"

Jess couldn't help but let a few tears fall, but they went unnoticed by Rachel so she just kept on shouting

"I have never been more annoyed at anyone Jess, I know I'm not your mum but I have a legal duty to look after you now your Dad isn't here and at the moment Jess I've a good mind never to trust you going out again"

Jess was sobbing now so Rachel decided she'd said enough

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to do it, I don't know why I did I was just drunk and everyone else was doing it" Jess wept

Rachel sighed and came and sat by Jess

"I just thought you had more common sense Jess" Rachel said

"I know, I'm really really sorry and it'll never happen again I promise"

"You're right Jess it won't happen again because I shall be watching you like a hawk for the next few months"

"I don't know what else to say Rachel, I'm just really sorry"

"well there's not a lot else I can say is there other than I'm extremely disappointed and if there's ever a repeat…well believe you me they'll be trouble"

Jess didn't say anything else but immediately went upstairs and started crying

Rachel decided to get on with some work for a bit and then made herself a cup of coffee

After a while she decided it was probably a good idea to go and check on the girls so she went upstairs

She went into Olivia's room as she wanted to make sure she'd woken up

When she went in she found Olivia on her bed with her laptop, it looked as if she'd been crying but Rachel couldn't be sure

As soon as Olivia saw Rachel come in she quickly slammed the laptop shut

"What were you looking at on their love?" Rachel asked sounding suspicious

"Nothing"

"Well it can't be nothing it must be something" Rachel said smiling slightly

"I said it's nothing"

Rachel sighed and decided to sit on the bed next to her, there was something going on with Olivia at the moment but Rachel just couldn't work out what, she'd tried talking to her about it on quite a few occasions but Olivia would just tell her to drop it

"Love what's up with you at the moment? You really don't seem like your normal self"

"Nothing"

"Have you been crying?"

"No it's just hay-fever" Olivia said

"Ah right" Rachel said obviously not believing her "How about you show me what you were looking at on your laptop then"

"No" Olivia said adamantly

"well if it really was nothing, you wouldn't mind me having a little look would you"

"Why do you need to look? It's literally none of your business"

Rachel sighed and put her hand on Olivia's leg

"Because my love you are 10 years old and I'm the one who looks after you, so if there's something going on..if there's some sort of problem then I'm the one who needs to know about it so we can put things in place to fix it"

"Rachel I'm fine, please please just leave me alone to get ready"

Rachel sighed but realised there wasn't really a lot else she could say and she didn't want to force Olivia to hand over her laptop

"Right okay but liv please talk to me if there is a problem won't you? The worst thing you can do is keep it to yourself my love"

"I will I promise, but there honestly isn't a problem"

Rachel decided to leave her to it so walked out of Olivia's room and closed the door behind her

She was going to go back downstairs but thought it was probably a good idea to check on jess first, even though she was angry with her, she really didn't want her getting all upset

When Rachel walked in she found Jess sobbing her heart out

"oh love come on it's not as bad as all that" Rachel said going over and sitting next to her on the bed

"Yes it is"

Rachel sighed and put her arm round her

"no it really isn't"

"you said you'd never been more disappointed in anyone in your whole life"

"Yeah well maybe I was exaggerating a bit because I was so angry at you"

"I know how angry you are but I honestly wasn't even thinking straight, I don't know why I did it but it just sort of happened"

"Jess the reason I'm so angry is because I just can't believe you would go anywhere near drugs, not after all the talks we've had and all the education you receive about it in school"

"I know"

"and it was mostly just because I was so worried about you jess because I know how dangerous drugs can be, I know weed is one of the safer drugs but it can soon lead onto things, what if next time someone offers you ecstasy, people have died from that jess and I need to know that you are able to resist peer pressure, if you said yes to one type of drug who's to say you won't say yes to another. Things can turn nasty jess"

Jess suddenly started to feel really guilty when she realised how much stress she must have put Rachel through last night

"I'm sorry"

"I know you are and I'm sorry if I overreacted a bit but it's only because I care so much"

Jess thought for a moment, there was something she wanted to ask Rachel but she wasn't sure how to bring it up

"Rachel"

"Yes"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead"

"Have you ever done drugs?"

Rachel sighed not really knowing how to answer this, she knew if she answered truthfully she was going to sound like a bit of a hypocrite, but she also understood just how important it was for her to be honest with jess

"yes I have"

"Really"

"Yeah and I'm not one bit proud of it. I was a bit older than you and I went for one of my first nights out and I got chatting to this extremely attractive man, I was young and he was a lot older so I was flattered he was talking to me, anyway we met up with some of his friends and they offered me an ecstasy tablet and I didn't want to say no. I reacted terribly to it, I fell unconscious and I had to be taken to hospital, to be honest I was lucky to be alive and after that I vowed that I would never ever go near drugs again and I stuck to that"

"That must have been so scary"

"it was, it was one of the worst experiences of my life jess and I would hate for you to have to through anything like that and that's why I was so shocked last night jess"

"I promise it won't happen again"

"alright jess we'll say no more about it, I believe you when you say they won't be a repeat"

Jess and Rachel stayed chatting for a few minutes and then Rachel got up to check on Chloe

"Rachel my tummy still hurts" Chloe said as soon as Rachel walked in

"Oh dear, so when did it come on then"

"Well I woke up a few times during the night but it didn't start hurting properly till this morning"

"And it's not just that you need to go to the toilet or something?"

"No it's not like that"

"Okay well I'll go and get the calpol and then you'll just have to have a quiet day"

The morning passed really quickly and in the afternoon Jess just got on with some revision and Olivia decided to go out with friends

Chloe was still feeling a bit unwell so she and Rachel just watched a film together

It got to 7 and Rachel was wondering where Olivia had got to, she was a bit annoyed because she' specifically told her to be back for 6:30 in time for tea

About 10 minutes later Olivia came in and headed straight upstairs but Rachel appeared at the bottom

"Hey why are you so late?" she asked sounding strict

"Oh I just lost track of time"

"erm not good enough, come here please"

Olivia sighed before turning round to face Rachel. It was only then that Rachel noticed her tearstained face

"Love what's happened?"

"oh nothing"

"what like it was nothing earlier too?" Rachel sighed

"I'm fine rach"

"don't give me that, come on come and have a chat"

"No I said I don't want to talk" Olivia screamed before bursting into floods of tears and running into her room leaving Rachel really concerned

Rachel tried to talk to Olivia a few times throughout the evening but she wasn't having any of it, so Rachel just accepted that she wasn't going to talk to her at the moment

Once she'd got the kids to bed Rachel did some work for a bit before going to bed herself

She read her book for a while and was just about to turn her light off when Olivia came in tears falling from her face

"hey sweetie, come and get into bed"

Olivia ran over and got in beside her

"I can't sleep"

"Now why can't you sleep hmm"

"because…I don't know"

"darling you can tell me, you don't have to be afraid you know"

"Rachel I don't want to talk about, please don't make me"

"I can't make you do anything love"

"I don't want to talk about it but please can I stay in with you tonight?"

"yes of course you can"

Rachel switched off the light and Olivia soon fell asleep, but Rachel lay in bed worrying for quite a while after.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

A week or so had passed and Rachel was beginning to get really worried about Olivia, she used to be so loud and bubbly all the time but now she spent most of her time in her room and was really quiet around the house, Rachel had tried talking to her about it on a number of occasions but Olivia would normally just snap at her.

It was a Friday and Rachel had just woken all the girls up for school, before she'd gone back to her bedroom to finish getting ready.

A couple of minutes later she heard a knock at her door

"Yep come in"

Olivia opened the door so Rachel turned round to look at her

"Hello love what are you doing in here?"

"Rachel I don't feel very well"

Rachel sighed, knowing full well that Olivia was just trying to get a day off school, this had become a bit of a habit this week and she wasn't very happy about it

"How don't you feel well?"

"erm my stomach is really hurting an I've got a headache"

Rachel raised her eyebrows

"Really?" she asked clearly not believing her

"Yes really" Olivia snapped "do you not believe or something"

"No Olivia I don't believe you not one bit, you've been trying to get out of school all week and you don't look even a little bit ill"

"I've got a really high temperature though"

Olivia realised this was a stupid thing to say though because she knew Rachel was going to check it just now

Sure enough, Rachel put her hand to Olivia's forward and realised that she didn't have a temperature

"Well you don't feel hot to me, Liv just stop this and get ready for school, it's a Friday so you've got an entire weekend to relax"

Olivia suddenly felt tears form in her eyes, she was dreading going to school today and she felt sick at the thought of going in

"Hey what is it love? What's happened?"

"Nothing I just don't feel very well"

Rachel sat down on her bed and gestured for Olivia to sit down next to her

"Liv you used to love school, but I know something isn't quite right at the moment, you're all quiet round the house and just not like your usual self at all, so come on tell me what's been going on"

"I'm fine Rachel, I'll go and get ready for school now" Olivia said, trying to brush her tears away

"You can talk to me liv, you know that don't you?"

Olivia nodded her head, but she knew she couldn't talk to Rachel about this, she felt far too ashamed of it

When Olivia was in her room she burst into tears, over the last few weeks she hated school, these girls in her class had started bullying her and they were making her life hell, Olivia didn't want to tell Rachel because she felt embarrassed about it and she knew that if she told her teacher it'd make everything worse

Eventually everyone was ready to go to school so got in the car

"Rachel I'm stopping at Megan's tonight so I'm not coming home"

"Jess I wish you'd tell me about these things a little in advance"

"okay I will in future, but can I go?"

"Yes I suppose so, just don't be too late back tomorrow okay?"

"Yep"

Olivia was staring out of the window and she could feel tears forming in her eyes again, when Rachel looked in her mirror she noticed Olivia crying but she wasn't going to say anything in front of the other two girls as she knew that she'd feel embarrassed if she brought it up

When they got to the primary school, Chloe ran out and went to find her friends

Rachel got out the car too, wanting to have a little chat with Olivia

"liv can I have a quick couple of words love?"

"yep"

Rachel went round the corner with her where they wouldn't be seen

"I saw you crying in the car"

"Yeah I told you I don't feel well"

"Yes I know you've told me that, but I don't believe you so how about telling me what's really going on hmm?"

"Nothing" Olivia snapped "I'm going in to school"

Before Rachel had a chance to say another word Olivia ran off

Rachel was feeling really worried about her but she knew she couldn't exactly follow her in to school, so just decided to leave it and get back to the car

"How come you got out Rach?" Jess asked

"I just wanted to have a quick chat with Olivia"

"she's been acting so weirdly at the moment"

"I know she has, look I know that she's your sister and if she'd told you something in confidence then I know why you wouldn't want to tell me, but I'm really worried about her Jess, so has she said anything to you"

"No not really, I have tried chatting with her, she was crying in bed last night at about 1 when I got up for a wee so I went in and tried to chat with her but I think she felt embarrassed so I just left it"

"oh god I wonder what it is that's happened, I thought it might be that she was struggling with school work but I had a look through her book and she seems to be doing great"

"she'll be fine Rachel don't stress"

Rachel spent most of her morning thinking about Olivia, even though she wasn't the girls mother she almost felt like she was and she got really worried if she thought something was wrong with any of them

It was break time and Olivia had ran into the toilets to avoid seeing the girls, it had just started off as teasing but now it was getting really bad and they wouldn't leave her alone. They'd follow her round the school and they'd call her names, at first Olivia had tried to ignore it but now she was feeling awful about it

She was stood by one of the cubicles when suddenly the door opened and they all came in

"Oh my god look who it is" one of them said "you hiding from us"

"No" Olivia mumbled

"I bet she is, how pathetic, can't you stand up for yourself at all"

"Leave me alone"

"God look at her, she looks like she's about to cry"

Olivia tried desperately hard to hold back the tears but she could feel them filling in her eyes

"She looks even uglier when she's crying, but I bet no one would have thought that's possible"

"She's minging"

They kept going on at her and in the end Olivia ended up running away from them

She went into reception and begged to be sent home

The receptionist was quite worried about Olivia and called her teacher over to see her

"Liv are you okay?" she asked

"Yes miss I just really don't feel well, please can I go home"

"Well if you're not feeling well I think that's the best place for you, but are you sure that's all it is?"

"Yeah I just feel really poorly"

She wasn't entirely convinced but agreed for Olivia to be sent home, thinking even if she wasn't poorly she shouldn't really be in school if she was this upset about something

Olivia knew she was going to get into trouble with Rachel, when they rang her to pick her up, but at the moment she didn't really care, anything was better than being at school.

As soon as Rachel got to school Olivia could see she wasn't very happy

She didn't say anything to her as she signed her out but then turned round to face her

"Come on then"

Olivia quickly picked her stuff up and followed Rachel out to the car

"So you managed to get out of school in the end huh?"

"I told you this morning I really am poorly"

"you might be able to fool your teachers but don't think you can fool me young lady now I want some proper answers"

"I'm poorly"

Rachel sighed heavily not knowing what to say to her

"Put your seat belt on we'll talk about it in my office"

"Aren't we going home"

"No because believe it or not I've still got to go to work, the whole world doesn't stop just because you've decided you want a day off"

As soon as she said that Rachel felt bad, she'd been having a stressful day at work so this really wasn't what she needed right now but she realised she'd probably been too harsh on her

They didn't say much as Rachel drove back to school and then they got out of the car and walked up to her office

"Rachel I'm really tired can I just go to sleep"

"Yes if you like"

Olivia went and laid down on Rachel's sofa and closed her eyes

She didn't actually go to sleep because she had too much going on in her mind but she just really didn't want Rachel quizzing her

Rachel didn't get a chance to talk to Olivia because she got so absorbed in all her work and before she knew it the bell had gone so they had to go and pick Chloe up

"Are you okay to wait in the car while I pick her up?"

"No" Olivia immediately answered, thinking they might see her in the car and come over "I mean I want to get some fresh air"

"Okay" Rachel said

It was boiling hot outside and Rachel and Olivia felt uncomfortable in their work/school stuff

"Are you sure you don't want to sit in the car, its cooler in there than it is out here"

"No its okay"

Eventually Chloe came out and ran over, but Rachel soon realised her shirt and tights were soaked through

"Chloe why are you so wet?"

"I got into a water fight"

Rachel sighed but she didn't really mind, it was nice to see Chloe having fun

"Well we'll have to get your uniform off as soon as we get in or you'll mess my carpet up"

Chloe giggled and they went to the car

"I think we'll have to get the sunbeds out when we get home, its boiling outside"

"Can I have molly round to play?"

"Yes I suppose so"

They got in and Rachel took Chloe up to her room to quickly get changed out of her uniform

"do you want to just put some knickers on, then you can go and play under the sprinkler can't you?"

"Yeah, but then how will I go round to Molly's to ask if she can come round?"

"Well I'll go and ask her"

Rachel went round and Molly came over to play so the two of them went into the back garden

When she could see the two of them were okay Rachel decided to go up and check on Olivia as she'd gone straight to her room

She knocked but when she didn't get an answer she just went in

She found Olivia on her bed asleep so went over and shook her gently

"Liv can I talk to you for a couple of minutes"

"okay"

"I'm sorry for shouting earlier, I was just a bit stressed but I shouldn't have taken it out on you"

"It's fine"

"love answer me honestly and I'm not going to be angry, are you really poorly or is there some other reason why you don't want to be at school?"

"No I'm fine"

Rachel didn't know what to say, she knew that Olivia wasn't telling her the truth but she couldn't force her to talk

She stayed with her a bit longer but in the end decided to just leave it for now

The rest of the evening went quite quickly, Olivia stopped in her room for most of the night and didn't eat very much of her tea, as soon as she'd finished eating she went back upstairs

"Right I think it's bath and bedtime for you my love" she said to Chloe

"No let me stay up later"

"It's late enough young lady, come on bath time"

"No I want to watch one more thing on TV"

Rachel sighed, Chloe had started to become a bit cheekier with her, but in a way Rachel was glad about this as it showed that she was starting to feel more relaxed around the house

"Nope, but if you're a good girl I might let you stay up tomorrow"

"Okay"

Once Rachel had bathed her she dried her hair and got her ready for bed

"Rachel I don't think I'll be able to go to sleep yet"

"oh and why's that?"

"It's still light outside"

"Chloe it's been light outside for the past month when you've been going to sleep, I'm sure you'll cope"

"I'm thirsty"

"I'll bring you up some water"

"Can't I have coke"

"No you cannot have coke right before you're about to go to sleep"

Rachel went downstairs and brought her up some water

"Right sleep"

"Okay, night Rachel love you"

"Love you too" Rachel kissed her on the forehead before going back downstairs

She stayed down for a couple of hours before deciding to go up to bed as she really was feeling quite tired by now

Olivia stayed up for hours worrying about everything, however when she eventually did go to sleep she ended up having a really bad nightmare about the girls and woke up dripping in sweat sobbing her heart out

She ran into Rachel's room and woke her up, because she felt so frightened

"Liv what's the matter darling?" Rachel asked before flicking the light on

It was only then she realised what a state Olivia was in so quickly brought her onto the bed and wrapped her arms around her

"I've had a really bad dream" Olivia sobbed

"oh dear, it's okay look your with me nice and safe nobody's going to hurt you"

"Yes they are" Olivia cried

"No love it was just a dream"

"No you don't understand they're going to get me, that's why I can't go to school" Olivia cried

"What do you mean liv?" Rachel asked gently

"They've been horrible to me for the past weeks, they started yelling all this stuff at me today in the toilets and I just got really upset that's why I wanted to come home"

"Oh sweetheart why didn't you tell me"

"Because I felt embarrassed"

"Oh darling its nothing to be embarrassed about, it's them that should be feeling embarrassed about what they've done not you"

"I just don't want to make things worse"

"You won't do love and now that you've told me what's been going on we can sort it out can't we huh?"

"Yeah I guess"

"We can I promise, I just really wish you felt you could talked to me sooner"

"I wanted to I just didn't know how"

"Oh love, well at least you've told me now, I'm just so sorry you've had to go through all this"

Rachel made sure she'd calmed down and was feeling better, before going and getting her some water

"You ready to go to sleep now darling"

"Can I stay in with you?"

"Yes of course"

Although Olivia hadn't wanted to tell Rachel about it she felt so much better now she had


End file.
